Image credit: IMDb
Due to a scene starring the nine-dot line map that shows China’s claims to disputed waters in the South China sea, the Barbie movie will reportedly not be released in Vietnam.
On July 21, the same day as the US, the Warner Bros. movie starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling was scheduled for local distribution. The National Film Evaluation Council, according to the head of the Vietnam movie department at the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, Vi Kien Thanh, made the statement on Monday (July 3), according to the local news website VnExpress.
An international tribunal declared maps showing the illegible, crooked U-shaped border in the South China Sea to be useless in 2016. Several governments have stakes in the disputed waters, including Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Beijing disputed the verdict.
The Greta Gerwig-directed film is not the first to encounter regulatory problems because of the map. Warner Bros. was contacted by Quartz for comment.