Abominable movie gets cuts in Asia due to maritime disputes

Manila — The animated movie Abominable from DreamWorks Animation has landed in controversy in Southeast Asia as the film features a map of China showing the Asian giant’s maritime claims disputed by its neighbours.

A top government official in the Philippines backed a boycott of all movies from the Comcast-owned production house, joining Vietnam, which has also raised its objections. At the centre of the dispute is the movie’s apparent endorsement of Beijing’s “nine-dash line” that lays claims to 80% of the South China Sea.

In Malaysia, censors have ordered the scene removed from the movie, Reuters reported Thursday.

“For me, call a universal boycott of all DreamWorks production here on,” foreign secretary Teodoro Locsin said in a tweet this week, reacting to a Twitter post by a maritime-law professor calling for the movie to be banned in the Southeast Asian country.

But unlike Vietnam, which has ordered cinema halls to pull the movie, the Philippines hasn’t imposed any restrictions yet.

DreamWorks is the latest example of a business getting caught in the geopolitical crossfire as countries tussle over issues ranging from sovereignty claims to maritime boundaries. The US National Basketball Association (NBA) found itself in the centre of a storm last week after a team official in the US expressed his support for the pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong in a tweet that was later deleted.

While Vietnam has been the region’s most forceful nation in pushing back against Beijing’s claims in the South China Sea, tensions have been simmering between the Philippines and China as well. Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, in a rare rebuke of China earlier this year, told his giant neighbour to lay off an island in the disputed waters. Manila has also escalated a protest over the presence of more than 200 Chinese vessels near the area.

Duterte is also pressing ahead with a plan to explore oil and gas in the sea jointly with China, which has promised 60-40 revenue sharing favouring the Philippines. The US estimates the region has $2.5-trillion in unexploited hydrocarbon resources.

In a separate tweet on Thursday, Locsin said “failure to react may be seen as a kind of submission on a diplomatic level”, adding “but our reaction must be minimally invasive of free speech concerns.”

Abominable is a Chinese co-production about a teenage girl named Yi, who finds a yeti on the roof of her home in Shanghai. She names him “Everest” and sets off to help him get home to his family. The movie opened in US theatres late last month.

Bloomberg