I think it was planned to shut it down in the first place. There is no way that this movie didn't slip through the hands of a gov. official of the highest ranks.
I guess as stated before, the language of criticism in the movie was mild and the shown impacts of pollution are more than visible in most parts of the country.
And since fighting pollution is already on top of the government agenda, the movie can't and couldn't hurt much. Plus it gives the current leadership [known for being harda**es on censorship] a little bit of :"Ah, these guys aren't that bad."
But now that the movie went viral on all media channels, it becomes too risky. They may think the director to become a environment activist guru, leading to mass movements and such.
They probably just hoped a few people would watch it and, that they already know how bad pollution is.
And to be honest, this movie is more for the [so far] naive.
even state media isn't shy telling you about reports of astronomical cancer increase, mutations, allergies, lung and heart diseases.
Most of the stuff is already well known. the movie is so cool, because now we see faces of people reporting and affected by it.
I have a feeling the movie will be back online when the whole thing is chilling out again.
Plus I gently agree with Magnifico.
It might be a PR stunt by the government. I mean so many people have watched it already, it gives the documentary even more publicity.
And the guys up in Beijing know that very well.
@alexkmg,
i only watched the first 10 minutes, so i can't tell if it's an independent work.
the reason i don't take it at face value is because it seems conspicuous that it was allowed to slip past the censors long enough for hundreds of millions of people to watch and news outlets to report on.
again, if someone can point out exactly how long it allegedly slipped past the censors (one week?) and is this realistic?
but i could be wrong.
Now you can watch all of it.
i just looked it up. it got by the censors 3 days...
Yeah, they let it go for 3 days, what does that mean?
I guess all the foreigners here would of been much happier if it was pulled off in the first five minutes.
Come on guys lets not be naive. Clearly the documentary was well produced, by a person who must have close ties to the CCP and who was allowed to interview anyone and everyone without impunity. The story of the documentary was a little too fairytale and the people who were interviewed were a little too high up the chain to have not sought permission or questioned people in the government about the interviews. If the CCP did not want this shown, they would have and could have had it shut down before it was even aired on youku, probably while it was being made. They didn't, and because they didn't it shows its production and release was clearly intentional. They wanted to show their intentions regarding environmental legal changes approaching and their enforcement. However, the doco became bigger than they thought it would and tipped over the point where "showing their intentions" started becoming "a bit embarrassing at showing how impotent some of our governing is" possibly leading to social disharmony. Hence the removal.
They killed two birds with one stone shutting it down - slowed its spread and limited the embarrassment it is causing and reinforced that they have absolute power over the media, both traditional and online.
Did you even watch it blobbles?
@Blobbles: that makes sense to me.
