Why Martin Scorsese's The Departed Was Banned In China

Warner Bros.

Martin Scorsese's "The Departed" is not the most important film in the director's oeuvre, nor is it his best (it's not even close), but it is one of his biggest commercial successes along with being the movie that finally earned him long-overdue Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director. A remake of Andrew Lau and Alan Mak's Hong Kong cop thriller "Infernal Affairs," the film did big box office business because it delivered chesty performances from heavyweight thespians like Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, and Jack Nicholson while trafficking in the kind of viscerally charged violence that's been a staple of Scorsese's mob movies. This one felt like it was strictly for fun, and it is precisely that. If you happen to come across it on television, you're likely sticking with it until the bloody end.

Given that "Infernal Affairs" was a massive success in Asia, you might figure Scorsese's film performed strongly in the People's Republic of China. It did not. In fact, it didn't perform at all. China Film Group, one of the major film importers in the mainland, rejected the movie outright. Why? Was it get-back for Scorsese's "Kundun," his masterful biopic about the early life of the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet when China made plain their intent to execute him? Was it a wacky objection, like when the Chinese government banned the exhibition of "Back to the Future" because it depicted time travel? Or was it simply because the gangsters in "The Departed" are looking to sell tech to Chinese clients?

It was none of these things.

Warner Bros

According to the Los Angeles Times, China nixed the theatrical distribution of "The Departed" because it's mentioned in the movie that the country could use nuclear weapons on Taiwan. Given the still-unsettled political situation in Taiwan (which is split between unification with the PRC and independent rule), this is obviously a sensitive subject for the already hyper-sensitive China. But it didn't prove insurmountable for Warner Bros. and "The Departed" going forward.

In time, the film was made available on DVD after a few objectionable minutes were excised. As for Scorsese, his subsequent films have not been barred from screening in China. This is always a tricky situation, and you hate to see studios capitulating to an authoritarian government. But it doesn't seem like the content of "The Departed" was seriously compromised, and, besides, it wasn't political in the first place. It's just a meat-and-potatoes gangster flick, one served with all the fatty trimmings, but absent the thematic nuance that makes "Mean Streets," "Goodfellas" and "Casino" stone-cold masterpieces (and Martin Scorsese our greatest living filmmaker).