County officials star in film, stir controversy
Updated: 2011-07-28 14:59
By Yan Weijue (chinadaily.com.cn)
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Chinese netizens have been querying the cast of a soon-to-be-shown film depicting stories of the Red Army during the Long March (1934-1936) as some of them are government officials from a local county that invested in the film.
Listed as one of China's poverty-stricken counties, Tongdao county has invested 2.5 million yuan ($387,770), ouf of a total investment of eight million yuan, the equivalent of 2.5 percent of its annual fiscal revenue, on the Route Diversion in Tongdao (or Tongdao Zhuan Bing) produced by Xiaoxiang Film Group Co Ltd as a tribute to the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China as well as a tourism promoting tool for the county.
Local government officials, including two deputy county chiefs, played key roles in the film, which is scheduled to be shown in early August.
The county's bold contribution to the film aroused strong feelings from Internet users, who criticized the investor's lousy taste in cast selection and said the investment was a waste of money.
"It would have been more meaningful for the money to be used for infrastructure construction," claimed a blogger on Sina Weibo, China's Twitter-like platform. "And when did the officials shoot the film, during their work hours?"