Hoping to continue its record-setting box office pace, The Hunger Games opened in China this week. The film, which combines themes from the Minotaur myth, gladiatorial combat and the devastation of war-torn Iraq, evoked strong responses from Chinese social media-goers, some of whom saw it as a valid depiction of the current Chinese political situation.
In the film, described as “the most moving and thoughtful of recent films” by a prominent Chinese television personality who highly recommended it, teenagers are forced to fight to the death as “tribute” to a failed rebellion against the “Capitol” many years before.
Opening a week after the sensitive date of “June 4,” the film includes the line “I wish I could show that they don’t own me.”
This led one online commentator going by the moniker “spider,” to remark, “How did that pass the government’s censors?”
