Ah Sou: Editing a movie for mainland distribution

"...and you, and you, and you were there."

Zhang Pimin, assistant director of the Film Bureau within the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT), said that since Ah Sou is a joint production, distributors are acting in violation of regulations by showing it in Hong Kong while it has yet to pass review on the mainland.

But there's nothing that explicitly prohibits a jointly-financed film from showing only in Hong Kong; last year's Jiang Hu was barred from the mainland, but it wasn't called out when it opened in Hong Kong. The regulations merely require that the same version show in both regions, so producers are not allowed to take an explicit version showing elsewhere and cut it to get it past the mainland censors. Calling Ah Sou "illegal" may simply be SARFT trying to rationalize blocking the film, since the film bureau has not clearly stated the reasons behind the delay.

So what do the script doctors at SARFT recommend? According to rumors (because movie industry folk no longer want to speak on the record about Ah Sou), the censors are partial to an "It was all only a dream" scenario. They propose bookending the movie with scenes of another character in whose imagination all of the violence and disruption of social order take place.