Kung Fu Panda Boycott in China

Kung Fu Panda turned out to be more than just an animated hit in China. It has gotten Chinese artists to find fault with their own film industry and call for less controls on culture, according to Reuters.

Wu Jiang, the president of the China National Peking Opera Company told Reuters, "The film's protagonist is China's national treasure and all the elements are Chinese, but why didn't we make such a film?" The movie speaks of a fat panda who dreams of martial arts glory and this was faithful to the Chinese culture and laced with good humor that China was unable to produce, according to Reuters.

Lu Chuan told Reuters that the government in China was stifling the creativity of China's filmmakers telling of how he had been asked to make an animated film for the Olympic Games, but decided to walk away from the project. "I kept receiving directions and orders on how the movie should be like. The fun and joy from doing something interesting left us, together with our imagination and creativity."

An artist of China, Zhao Bandi, called for a boycott of the film which was profiteering from China's national symbol as well as Chinese critics who called for the boycott because Steven Spielberg, an executive of DreamWorks, quit his role as an artistic advisor to the Beijing Olympics to protest China's links to the Sudanese government, reported Reuters.