Kiwi Chow’s Deadline banned in Hong Kong over national security concerns

Hong Kong authorities have banned the public screening of Kiwi Chow’s Deadline, saying the film could be “detrimental to national security”.

Chow said on Facebook that the official body responsible for classifying films for public exhibition had notified him they would not be issuing a screening licence for the movie.

The filmmaker, 44, said the Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration’s decision came after almost four months of censorship review of the film. The decision prevents it from being shown legally in cinemas or other public venues in Hong Kong.

In his statement, written in Chinese and translated online, Chow wrote that the ruling, based on the National Security Law passed in 2020, was “absurd, excessive, crude, and unjust”.

If he exhibited the movie without approval, Chow noted, he could face a fine of up to HK$1m (£96,000) and even a jail term of up to three years.

The filmmaker said he had spoken to a lawyer about filing an appeal but was told that “in an era of judicial collapse, suing the government holds little meaning”.

“If I were to lose the case, I could face the government seeking reimbursement for over a million dollars in legal fees,” he said.

“The National Security Law has brought disaster to Hong Kong and this is another case. Originally a commercial film, it has now been passively turned into a political event, and absurdly judged to be a film that is not conducive to national security. It is painful to accept the reality that the film cannot be screened in Hong Kong.”

Chow vowed to continue making films and said he was looking forward to when his movie would be screened in Hong Kong, where he was born.

“May justice come to Hong Kong. I believe God will not abandon the city, nor will I,” he said.

Chow last month alleged “unreasonable delays” in the review of his after receiving no update on his application for three months. “Stop ‘imprisoning’ this film in the name of censorship or national security. Release Deadline!” he had written.

The Hong Kong film office usually finishes a review within 14 days.

Deadline, filmed in Taiwan and starring veteran actor Anthony Wong Chau-sang, is set in a in a secondary school where a suicide note appears shortly before an examination and sparks a chain of events that exposes institutional pressure and moral breakdown within the education system.

According to The Hong Kong Free Press, the letter from the film office did not explain which elements of the film were detrimental to national security.

In a statement, the office said it processed all applications in keeping with the law. “The Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration has all along been processing film censorship applications in accordance with the law. OFNAA would not comment on individual applications,” it said.

The Deadline restriction sits within a wider crackdown on film and cultural production following the introduction of the National Security Law.

In 2021, Hong Kong revised its Film Censorship Ordinance to allow authorities to deny or revoke screening licences if a film was considered harmful to national security, bringing cinema regulation in line with the security framework imposed by China.

Under the revised system, films can be banned outright rather than classified and approval can be withdrawn even after a licence is granted, significantly increasing uncertainty for filmmakers and exhibitors.

Chow told Reuters at the time that he had to find new inventors to complete his film, Say I Do To Me, a love story about an influencer who plans to marry herself. Investors had pulled around 80 per cent of his funding and his lead actor had also dropped out.

“They think they have business with China, so even if there is little risk, they all find it unacceptable, not to mention that in their eyes, this is a very high risk,” he said.

Chow is one of Hong Kong’s most controversial filmmakers, having repeatedly tested the boundaries of political expression on screen.

He first attracted international attention in 2015 with Ten Years, an anthology film imagining a near-future Hong Kong under authoritarian rule. Authorities pulled the film from cinemas and described it as “a virus of the mind”, according to ABC News.

His 2021 documentary Revolution of Our Times, chronicling the city’s pro-democracy protests, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and won awards overseas but remains unofficially banned in Hong Kong, with no approval for public screening in the city.

The Independent has reached out to the Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration for a comment.