The horror film Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey will not be released in Hong Kong and Macau, its distributor, VII Pillars Entertainment, announced on Tuesday (March 21st). a few days before the planned release. This withdrawal illustrates the growing self-censorship in Hong Kong under pressure from Beijing, including in the artistic and cultural field. Chinese President Xi Jinping has been caricatured as Winnie the Pooh since a 2013 meeting with then-US President Barack Obama.
A far cry from the Disney and Soviet studio Soyuzmultfilm screen versions that made the character popular on both sides of the Iron Curtain, the Blood and Honey version is a gory adaptation of Rhys Frake-Waterfield, released in February in the United States. Initially promised for a very modest theatrical release, this low-budget production made thanks to the passage of rights into the public domain has turned into a phenomenon benefiting from a worldwide release.
VII Pillars Entertainment expressed its "deep regret" for the cancellation in Hong Kong, without specifying the cause, in a message on Facebook. The Hong Kong administration said it had issued a release, appearing to indicate that the film had not been censored. But the organizer of a preview that was scheduled for Monday canceled the event, citing unspecified technical causes. Winnie the Pooh has become a symbol of opposition to the Chinese president in recent years. In response, China has been steadily redacting the internet even within its borders, and in 2018 denied the release of the Disney film Christopher Robin in which the character featured.