Drama and entertainment programming will disappear from Chinese television screens for five days from Tuesday morning onwards.
In anticipation of Thursday’s military parade in Beijing to mark 70 years since Japanese defeat in WWII, the nation’s TV viewers will be subject to 120 hours of anti-Japanese war dramas.
Some cultural and education programme will be exempt from the weeklong ban on entertainment, China’s Tencent News reported. Fortunately for the country’s captive audience, however, anti-Japanese war dramas have been among the greatest sources of mirth on Chinese TV in recent years.
In May, Together We Fight the Devils attracted national attention after a character played by Ge Tian smuggled a grenade into a Japanese prison hidden between her legs in a scene in the film. The infamous “crotch bomb” scene earned the show ridicule online and was soon taken off the airwaves.
Other notable examples of Chinese war drama’s liberal reinterpretation of history include scenes where Chinese martial artists tear apart Japanese soldiers with their bare hands and leather-clad guerrillas annihilate the Imperial Japanese Army with bows and arrows.
According to mainland media reports, the country’s TV stations have been instructed to “avoid extreme dramas such as the so-called “hand-shredded devils.”
Other measures taken by authorities ahead of the big date include cancelling hospital services in the capital. A pro-democracy known for giving public speeches in support of recognising the contributions of China’s then Kuomintang government in the Sino-Japanese War also recently went missing.
