Film Censorship in Hong Kong
#5 in the Hong Kong Repression Monitor series
The Hong Kong Repression Monitor series provides overviews of indicators of repression in Hong Kong, based on research and data collected from 2019 to the present. For more information, see this introduction, which also provides a full list of entries in the series as they are published.
This article is #5 in the Hong Kong Repression Monitor series.
UPDATE: On May 13, 2025, film festival organizer Ying E Chi (影意志) announced that screenings of the film, “A Little Spark A Little Blaze,” about renowned Hong Kong journalist Ronson Chan, would be cancelled at the upcoming Hong Kong Indie Short Film Award 2025: Finalist Showcase in June, due to “pressure on an interviewee” in the film, presumably Ronson Chan himself, who still lives in Hong Kong. When asked, Ronson Chan said, “Of course, I can’t say who gave me the order or the reminder… It’s a kind reminder, nevertheless.” Ying E Chi itself announced in October 2024 that it had closed down in Hong Kong in 2023 and moved to Taiwan around August. Vincent, the man behind Ying E Chi, said he had started to think of leaving Hong Kong in 2021 due to the Arts Development Council cutting funding, the Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre not renewing its contract, the new film censorship law, and the fact that two films it hosted screenings of got censored. This is the first Hong Kong Indie Short Film Festival since the move, and among the 12 finalists for the award are some films which were previously censored in Hong Kong. Ironically, while Ying E Chi moved away from Hong Kong in order to show films freely, Hong Kong censorship has followed it to Taiwan. In this case, there is no involvement of the official Hong Kong film censor; rather, it appears that the specter of state repression cast a shadow over one of those who appears in Chan’s film, an example of how censorship often works. This would be the 33rd case of film censorship in Hong Kong in the past four and a half years.
UPDATE: On April 16, 2025, it was reported that the Iranian film, “Seed of the Sacred Fig,” has been denied approval by Hong Kong official film censor, the Office for Film, Newspaper, and Article Administration, effectively banning it. As per usual, OFNAA refused to respond to inquiries regarding the film, and the news comes from someone who heard about the ban from the film’s distributor. The probably reason for the ban is that the film is set against the Woman Life Freedom mass protests of 2022 in Iran. The film director, Mohammad Rasoulof, made the film in secret and then fled into exile. If indeed the film is banned, it would be the 32nd film censored in Hong Kong in the past four and a half years, joining a list that includes Hong Kong indies, Hollywood blockbusters, “The Simpsons,” and “Family Guy.”
The crackdown in Hong Kong over the past five years has entailed various forms of censorship. The right to freedom of expression in virtually all public contexts has been drastically curtailed.
The type of censorship that has received the most attention is media censorship. Public broadcaster RTHK has been “harmonized” and turned into a mouthpiece of the regime. The largest-circulation daily newspaper Apple Daily has been forcibly shut down and its leadership imprisoned. One of the most highly respected online news outlets, Stand News, was also shut down and its editors imprisoned. At least seventeen other media outlets have been forced to close due to state repression. More than 1,000 journalists have lost their jobs. The independent Hong Kong Journalists Association faces constant persecution. Hong Kong plummeted on RSF’s international press freedom index from 80th in 2021 to 148th in 2022. (And it had already dropped from 18th worldwide in 2002, just five years after the handover, to 80th in 2020.)
Beyond the media, various forms of culture have also suffered censorship. While prominent pro-democracy musicians like Denise Ho and Anthony Wong have found it nearly impossible to perform publicly, with concert venues cancelling their bookings, the genres that probably have been hit hardest by censorship are films and books. Book censorship will be taken up in a later post, while this focuses on film.
From November 2020 to February 20, 2025, there have been 31 discrete instances of films being censored, whether in full or part: two in 2020; eight in 2021; nine in 2022; nine in 2023; two in 2024; and one in 2025. The films run the gamut from Hollywood blockbuster to small-budget local indie.
Hong Kong has an official censor, the Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration, but up to the imposition of the national security law in 2020, it functioned similarly to censors in free societies, largely holding itself to classifying films according to age appropriateness. In October 2021, Hong Kong’s rubber-stamp “patriots”-only Legislative Council approved the Film Censorship Bill, which amended the film ordinance to give the official censor the authority and responsibility to ban films on “national security” grounds. But even before that, the official censor had begun to take a more aggressive approach to censorship: The first instance of official censorship on suspected political grounds occurred already in June 2021 (see below). In all, of the 31 instances of film censorship documented here, OFNAA was the censor in 17 cases, just a little over half. Most of those cases involved small films scheduled to be screened at independent film festivals, and they only came to light due to the independent film festivals announcing that screenings of the films in question would have to be cancelled since OFNAA didn’t grant them the required licenses. It is likely that there is a significantly larger number of films that have not received approval from OFNAA for political reasons but whose banning hasn’t come to light.
That OFNAA’s been the censor of only a little more than half of the films censored in HK in the past four years means the other censors were non-official. The combination gives an indication not only of how pervasive self-censorship has become in Hong Kong but the many different conduits through which it flows: universities, Communist Party-owned-media propaganda campaigns, the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (which as its name suggests, is supposed to help develop the arts, not censor them), the police, the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department, Cathay Pacific, and big global corporations like Amazon and Disney+.
The first censors were actually public universities, which cancelled three screenings of documentaries having to do with the protests and the pro-democracy movement back in late 2020 and early 2021. Since then, there have no reports of universities stopping the screening of films, most likely because students got the message and have decided not to push the boundaries.
Three cases of censorship involve the roles of the Communist Party-owned newspapers Wen Wei Po and Ta Kung Pao, which frequently conducted campaigns calling for the banning of various films on national security grounds. After they attacked one film, the Hong Kong Arts Development Council pulled its funding for it. In two other cases, the directors themselves decided not to go ahead with the process to obtain a license to show their films publicly, fearing they stood no chance of being approved and/or even attempting to do so could endanger those depicted in the films.
On one occasion, the police together with the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department raided a private screening of an entirely apolitical film by a director who had made a famous documentary about the protests.
On two occasions, a local film distributor and a cinema chain decided to pull screenings.
One case involved Cathay Pacific censoring a scene of the animated TV show “Fall Guy.” Two cases involved Disney+ censoring episodes of “The Simpsons.” And in one case, Amazon did not allow the series “Expats,” to be shown in Hong Kong.
Strikingly, fifteen of the thirty censored films were scheduled to be shown at small, independent film festivals.
The discrete instances of films being censored that do come to light are like the tip of the iceberg in a double sense. First of all, there are probably plenty of other instances that don’t come to light. And secondly, the fact that censorship on political grounds hangs over the whole film culture transforms it, making everyone think twice about which projects they might or might not be willing to be involved in. One might argue that, in the context of hundreds of films released and shown in Hong Kong every year, thirty censored in the past four years is not a terrifically high number. But it is certainly enough to affect film culture and the environment for making and screening films. It is not an exaggeration to say that except for the few relatively big-budget pictures that get made within the system every year, the HK film industry has become all but moribund. As legendary film director Johnny To put it in a November 2024 interview, “"Hong Kong and I have both lost our souls: freedom and rights. I am currently in the slump of my life."
Films censored in Hong Kong
November 2020 to April 16, 2025
The films are listed below from most recent to oldest censorship episode. The information provided under each entry includes: name of film, date and/or place of censorship, organizer or distributor, censoring entity, the censoring entity’s stated reason (if any) for censorship, and the suspected reason for censorship.
“Seed of the Sacred Fig”; April 16, 2025; reported in Ming Pao based on a source who heard the news from the film’s distributor. The government’s Office of Film, Newspaper and Article Administration denied approval for the film to be shown in Hong Kong, effectively banning it. This in spite of the fact that in March it won an award for Best Screenplay at the Asian Film Awards in Hong Kong. OFNAA refuses to confirm or deny the ban. The probable reason is that the film is set against the backdrop of the Woman Life Freedom mass protests in Iran of 2022. The film’s director, Mohammad Rasoulof, made the film in secret and later fled into exile.
“MA—Cry of Silence”; February 19, 2025; announced by New Asia College Students’ Union of Chinese University of Hong Kong. It was planning to screen the documentary from Burma. Two hours before the screening time, it received a message from the Office of Film, Newspaper and Article Administration informing that the screening may violate the law. When the union reached out to OFNAA for clarification, its office was closed, and the union felt it had no option but to cancel the screening. The film had been screened three times at the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival in 2024. It may be OFNAA thought the film could “violate the law” because it is about Burma, women’s and labor rights.
“Family Guy”; December 4, 2024; Cathay Pacific. No specific reason given. An official Cathay Pacific statement apologizes and vows an investigation into what occurred and how. The “offending” clip in one episode of the animated series lasts seven seconds and features Tank Man, the unknown citizen who stood in front of a row of tanks in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Massacre in Beijing in June 1989.
“Expats”; January 29, 2024; Amazon. While the series was made in Hong Kong and distributed worldwide, Amazon did not make it available in Hong Kong. In later episodes, scenes from the 2014 Umbrella Movement appear.
“My Pen Is Blue”; announced June 9, 2023 for festival running June 9 to July 2. Organizer: Fresh Wave International Short Film Festival. Censor: HK Government Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration. Festival organizer: “The result and content of the censorship are confidential documents between Fresh Wave and OFNAA and cannot be made public.” Protagonist grapples with past, appears to reference 2019 protests and unrest.
“Please Hold On” (未能接通); announced June 9, 2023 for festival running June 9 to July 2. Organizer: Fresh Wave International Short Film Festival. Censor: HK Government Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration. Festival organizer: “The result and content of the censorship are confidential documents between Fresh Wave and OFNAA and cannot be made public.” Protagonist grapples with past, appears to reference 2019 protests and unrest.
“The Reticent Wave” (爺爺來訪的夜); announced June 9, 2023 for festival running June 9 to July 2. Organizer: Fresh Wave International Short Film Festival. Censor: HK Government Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration. Festival organizer: “The result and content of the censorship are confidential documents between Fresh Wave and OFNAA and cannot be made public.” Protagonist grapples with past, appears to reference 2019 protests and unrest.
“To Be Continued” (尚未完場); June 4, 2023; Golden Scene Cinema, Kennedy Town. Organizer: Derek Chu, former pro-democracy Yau Tsim Mong District Councillor. Censors: Golden Scene Cinema and “a representative from the film industry.” Reason: “sensitive date.” The date of the June 4 Tiananmen Massacre plus the identity of the organizer—police have previously raided a private film screening organized by Derek Chu (see below).
“Wake in Silence” (於是我安靜了); April 21, 2023. Organizer: Phone Made Good Film. Censor: HK Government Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration. Reason: Possibly seditious scene (showing old banner of defunct pro-democracy political party Demosistō banner with the word, “100% Freedom.”) Even after the banner was removed and replaced by a sign reading, “Uphold National Security, Safeguard Our Home,” OFNAA said Phone Made Good Film needed permission from the government to use that banner.
“It Happened One Night” (股肥肆仆街); March 30, 2023. Organizer: Phone Made Good Film’s Loose Narratives film festival. Censor: HK Government Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration. Official reason: It is misleading to feature actors in a fictitious drama who use real names. Suspected reason: The film has marijuana-smoking and rap music with rebellious lyrics.
“Cabin” (艙); March 30, 2023. Organizer: Phone Made Good Film’s Loose Narratives film festival. Censor: HK Government Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration. Reason: “detrimental to national security.” The film has allusions to pandemic controls, protests and imprisonment.
“Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey”; from March 23, 2023 at 32 cinemas. Distributor: VII Pillars Entertainment. Censor: VII Pillars Entertainment, perhaps under political pressure. No reason given. Suspected reason: Winnie the Pooh’s resemblance to Xi Jinping.
“The Simpsons: One Angry Lisa”; reported February 2023. Disney+. No reason given. Suspected reason: reference to forced labor camps in China.
“Blue Island” (憂鬱之島); 2022. Director Chan Tze-woon believes the film has no chance of getting a license from the HK Government Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration. It’s about the relationship of the 2019 protests to past political struggles in Hong Kong and China.
“The Lucky Woman” (逃跑的人); October 30, 2022. Organizer: Hong Kong Art Centre ifva All About Us Film Festival 2022. Censor: HK Government Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration demanded the removal of scenes of migrant workers protesting in Taiwan. Director didn’t comply. Films from Taiwan appear to get particularly close scrutiny.
“Bluffing” (唬爛三小); October 2022; Hong Kong Asian Film Festival. HK Government Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration. Details not reported; censor demanded cuts; director didn’t comply. Films from Taiwan appear to get particularly close scrutiny.
“Quarantini” (隔離丁尼); October 2022; Organizer: InDPanda International Film Festival. Censor: HK Government Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration. Details not reported; censor demanded cuts; director didn’t comply. Films from Taiwan appear to get particularly close scrutiny.
“The Dark Knight”; October 27, 2022, outdoor screening. Organizer: Greater Bay Media Entertainment Ltd. Censor: HK Government Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration. Reason given: the level of violence was not appropriate. Suspected reason: depiction of a corrupt Chinese businessman.
“The Dancing Voice of Youth” (與亂世共舞); July 2 & 3, 2022; Hong Kong Art Centre Independent Film and Video Awards. Censor: HK Government Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration demanded removal of English sub-titles that were seditious and incited hatred of government; director didn’t comply. Reasons: Tightening restrictions. The film had been approved prior to the new censorship law that came into effect in October 2021 and screened in March 2021.
“Islander” (赤島); June 2022; Fresh Wave Festival Censor: HK Government Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration delayed release of approval document until after scheduled dates of screening. The Taiwanese film was inspired by HK's pro-democracy protests.
“Time, and Time Again”; June 2022; Fresh Wave Festival. Censor: HK Government Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration. No reason given. The film protagonist’s name has the same pronunciation as that of a girl who disappeared during the HK protests.
“Anatomy of Rats” (群鼠); June 2022; Fresh Wave Festival. Organizer said screenings were cancelled because HK Government Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration failed to issue license beforehand. Organizer later updated that OFNAA eventually approved the film and it would be screened at a later time.
“Revolution of Our Times” (時代革命); 2021. Director Kiwi Chow fears screening in Hong Kong could subject those involved in the film to criminal liability after accusations appear in state-owned newspapers that the film advocates independence. The film depicts the 2019 protests from protesters’ point of view.
“The Simpsons: Goo Goo Gai Pan”; reported November 2021; Disney+. No reason given. The episode contains a reference to the Tiananmen Massacre.
“Piglet Piglet” (美豬肉圓); November 22, 2021; Ground Up Student Film Festival. Censor: HK Government Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration reportedly demanded all scenes and information related to Taiwan’s presidential election and Tsai Ing-wen be cut.
“The Cage” (牢籠); November 18, 2021; Ground Up Student Film Festival. Censor: HK Government Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration. No reason reported. According to its advertised description, the film “provides a strong message on totalitarian rule, capitalism, freedom and resistance.”
“Beyond the Dream” (幻愛); August 27, 2021; private screening at office of former Mong Kok District Councillor Derek Chu. Censors: Police and Food and Environmental Hygiene Department raid premises and fine 47 for violating pandemic restrictions on gathering. While the film itself is apolitical, its director is Kiwi Chow, who also directed “Revolution of Our Times” (see above).
“Far From Home (執屋); June 2021; Fresh Wave Festival. Censor: HK Government Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration demanded 14 cuts in the 25-minute-long film, objecting to the title, dialogue expressing sympathy for an arrested protester, a scene of removing items from a room, etc. The film is a sympathetic depiction of the effects of the arrest of a protester on family and friends.
“Inside the Red Brick Wall” (理大圍城); March 2021; part of a screening series of winners of Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards. Golden Scene Cinema. State-run newspaper Wen Wei Po’s calls for banning it, HK Arts Development Council withdraws US$90,000 grant. For inciting hatred of Chinese government, HK government and police, deemed that it may violate national security law. The cinema said it was cancelling "to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings." The film is about the police siege of PolyU in November 2019.
“Lost in the Fumes” (地厚天高); February 2021; HKU student union. Censor: University of Hong Kong. The film “may breach national security law; “is at risk of non-compliance with several legal requirements, including necessary due procedures for film screenings and may be in violation of public group gathering regulations.” Part of a city-wide crackdown on universities. The student union showed the film, and the university later discontinued collection of union membership dues on its behalf, effectively shutting it down.
“Inside the Red Brick Wall” (理大圍城); November 2020, Polytechnic University, Polytechnic University student union. Censor: Polytechnic University: “at the risk of violating the laws of Hong Kong, the rules and regulations of the university.” Part of city-wide universities crackdown on freedom of expression. (Student union moved the screenings off-campus; university later de-recognized the union.) The film is about the police siege of PolyU in November 2019.
“Save PolyU” (紅磚危城); November 2020; Polytechnic University; Polytechnic University student union. Censor: Polytechnic University: “at the risk of violating the laws of Hong Kong, the rules and regulations of the university.” Part of city-wide universities crackdown on freedom of expression. (Student union moved the screenings off-campus; university later de-recognized the union.)