Oct 14, 2019

Vietnam pulls "abhorrent" from South China Sea theater map - Updated

Vietnam has pulled the China/U.S. co-production Abominable out of the country's movie theaters after the discovery of a scene that shows what Vietnam claims to be a violation of its water sovereignty.

Produced by Shanghai's Pearl Studio and Glendale, California's Dreamworks Animation, Abominable had opened in Vietnamese cinemas on October 4, before the country's state media announced earlier today that it would take the film out of theaters. The film was released in the country as Everest: The Little Yeti.

Here's a look at what happened:

UPDATED - October 17: Other Asian countries that have overlapping claims on the South China Sea have joined the protest against Abominable. In Malaysia, film censors have ordered the scene with the offending map to be cut before the film is scheduled to open in the country next month, Reuters reported Thursday.

The Philippines, on the other hand, has not made any effort to edit or ban the film, however the country's secretary of foreign affairs Teodoro Locsin Jr. has suggested in tweets that the public should boycott Dreamworks releases. “Dreamworks let itself to be used for propaganda,” he wrote, before adding, “For me call a universal boycott of all Dreamworks productions from here on.”