The Grounds scraps Batman movie screening due to inappropriate level of violence

The Grounds has defended its decision to cancel the outdoor screening of a Batman movie as the Hong Kong film watchdog said the movie was too violent.

This comes as the showing of the 2008 movie The Dark Knight set for 27 October 2022 at outdoor event space The Grounds was halted “based on direction from the Hong Kong Government Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration,” according to a notice that organisers sent to ticket holders last Thursday. The organiser said refunds were available and Iron Man will be played on the day instead.

In a conversation with MARKETING-INTERACTIVE, a spokesperson of The Grounds said: “The Grounds decided to make a change of movie based on Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration (OFNAA)’s recommendation. OFNAA felt that for an outdoor screening, the level of violence was not appropriate. This discussion is not unusual. It is a normal part of the licensing process.”

The Grounds told HKFP that The Dark Knight, which is rated IIB, is more violent than the first and third film. The first sequal, Batman Begins, was screened last Thursday while the finale of the film series The Dark Knight Rises is scheduled for a November showing. The first and third have a lower IIA rating, or not suitable for children.

Social monitoring firm CARMA saw a total of 66.9% negative mentions related to the incident over the past seven days. CARMA's general manager Charles Cheung said that the majority of netizens were disappointed with the decision as there were only a few scenes focused on Hong Kong (namely IFC and the Central–Mid-Levels escalator), "Many questioned the decision to replace The Dark Knight with Iron Man as the latter also contains violent fighting scenes," Cheung added. 

Meanwhile, the city’s chief secretary for administration Eric Chan Kwok Ki has made clarifications towards a Bloomberg report claiming that Hong Kong authorities have suspended the screening of the movie due to “national security concerns”, which was later changed to “violence factors”.

Chan said: "We believed the reporting should have been accurate from the very start[…]It undermines freedom of speech and expression in Hong Kong."

On the other hand, Kevin Yeung, secretary for culture, sports, and tourism, told local press publicly last Friday to trust the government’s system, “We have a very solid system that when we look at a film, whether about the categorisation or whether it’s suitable for screening at certain occasions, we have a system to deal with that.” 

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