Movie production leaves China after script objections

(CBC) - Producers of the American movie Shanghai have pulled their project out of China after authorities there objected to the script.

"The decision has everything to do with not liking the script, especially elements about Chinese-Japanese collaboration," said producer Harvey Weinstein in an interview with Variety magazine, published on its website on Wednesday.

Shanghai, set during the Second World War, centres on an American (played by John Cusack) who comes across government secrets while investigating the death of a friend. The film also stars Gong Li and Ken Watanabe.

The Weinstein Company had already spent about $3 million US building sets in China.

Weinstein says the sets will be taken down and rebuilt in Thailand and England.

The producer said the move would not prevent him from filming future projects in China.

"If things are too sensitive or too difficult, we'll simply locate production elsewhere."

The company controls a $285-million Asian movie fund, which has invested in the upcoming China-set fantasy adventure The Forbidden Kingdom, starring Jackie Chan and Jet Li.

The issue of collaboration between Chinese and the Japanese during the war is a taboo topic in China.

Lust, Caution's Tang Wei blacklisted

Chinese actress Tang Wei was blacklisted by her government for her role in the erotic Ang Lee-directed spy thriller Lust, Caution.

Officials sent out a memo in early March to all media outlets and awards shows that they should erase any appearances by the actress, and she should not be invited to the shows.

Government bureaucrats were upset over the way the movie was "beautifying Japanese collaborators."

Tang stars as an undercover insurgent who becomes sexually entangled with a powerful collaborator during Japan's occupation of Shanghai in the 1940s.

Chinese authorities have also been careful when it comes to foreign performers or productions leading up to the Beijing Olympics this summer.

They have tightened controls over foreign-produced television programs and films.

Recently, the government said it would come down harder on foreign performers after Icelandic singer Bjork yelled out "Tibet Tibet" at the end of a recent concert in Shanghai.