Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple Removes New York Times Apps from iTunes Store in China

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 200 posts

Re: Apple Removes New York Times Apps from iTunes Store in China

#181

Post by [deleted] »

sangnoir wrote: post #158
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China does not make films that American consumers would want to consume. The best Chinese movies last year were mermaid and monster hunt...I saw both (bored on an air china flight), they were both absolutely awful. There was a time in the late 90s when the golden Beijing Institute of Film class (the first one after the cultural revolution) was producing wonderful art house films that DID get viewership abroad. Sadly,…

> China does not make films that American consumers would want to consume This is empirically false: Crouching Tiger, Ip Man 1-3 were all well-received[1] in the US. I could add anything by Jackie Chan (and for a while Jet Li), but not all if them were Chinese productions. 1. The first had some overt propaganda in the form of a sadistic but inept Japanese occupying officer.

[deleted]

Re: Apple Removes New York Times Apps from iTunes Store in China

#182

Post by [deleted] »

sangnoir wrote: post #158
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China does not make films that American consumers would want to consume. The best Chinese movies last year were mermaid and monster hunt...I saw both (bored on an air china flight), they were both absolutely awful. There was a time in the late 90s when the golden Beijing Institute of Film class (the first one after the cultural revolution) was producing wonderful art house films that DID get viewership abroad. Sadly,…

> China does not make films that American consumers would want to consume This is empirically false: Crouching Tiger, Ip Man 1-3 were all well-received[1] in the US. I could add anything by Jackie Chan (and for a while Jet Li), but not all if them were Chinese productions. 1. The first had some overt propaganda in the form of a sadistic but inept Japanese occupying officer.

[deleted]

Re: Apple Removes New York Times Apps from iTunes Store in China

#183

Post by [deleted] »

sangnoir wrote: post #158
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China does not make films that American consumers would want to consume. The best Chinese movies last year were mermaid and monster hunt...I saw both (bored on an air china flight), they were both absolutely awful. There was a time in the late 90s when the golden Beijing Institute of Film class (the first one after the cultural revolution) was producing wonderful art house films that DID get viewership abroad. Sadly,…

> China does not make films that American consumers would want to consume This is empirically false: Crouching Tiger, Ip Man 1-3 were all well-received[1] in the US. I could add anything by Jackie Chan (and for a while Jet Li), but not all if them were Chinese productions. 1. The first had some overt propaganda in the form of a sadistic but inept Japanese occupying officer.

[deleted]

Re: Apple Removes New York Times Apps from iTunes Store in China

#184

Post by seanmcdirmid »

olalonde wrote: post #155
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try living in china for a few years, once the honey moon is over :). Dealing with the air pollution, GFW, hideous traffic, and currency controls will wear a guy down.

I lived there for 6 years and my wife is from Guangxi. Of course China isn't perfect but it isn't as bad as most Western media depict it to be. For one, it isn't a dictatorship as most people in the West seem to think it is. I certainly don't support the censorship but I quite like their foreign policy for example.

China is actually worse than the western media portrays. Yes, it isn't a dictatorship, the opposite actually: rule of law is quite messed up, there is a lot of inequality, the Maoist pratices that we were all convinced were over rear their head from time to time to remind you that china is still very "different."

Westerners would have a more negative perception of china if they read/watched more of the Chinese media. It is so crass and biased (in a way western media could ever get away with) that you can't help but think things are very messed up.

My 9 years just ended. Granted, Beijing is more of a difficult situation than southern china, I could handle living in Guilin, liuzhou, or even Nanning (well, the latter is maybe too hot).

Re: Apple Removes New York Times Apps from iTunes Store in China

#185

Post by wodenokoto »

Inconel wrote: post #90
schoen wrote: post #61

Something that might be comparably shocking is the extent to which Chinese investors and government representatives influence the content of Hollywood movies that depict or refer to China. There were some news reports about this in the last couple of years; I sat next to a Hollywood studio executive on a flight last month and (rather than arguing about copyright policy) commiserated about this issue. He confirmed tha…

I'm not a fan of this kind of government influence in filmmaking, but so long as the Chinese are at it maybe they could turn their attention to Hollywood's propensity to depict Asian males as undesirable emasculated nerds and Asian females as fetishized objects.

Red 2 has a Korean male assassin whose main role in the film is to be eye candy for the female audience. So it seems things are changing.

Re: Apple Removes New York Times Apps from iTunes Store in China

#186

Post by dragonwriter »

krapp wrote: post #113
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has a very good portrayal of Asians, at least, though still nerdy (but the trope is subverted multiple times). Hollywood is getting better at it. Miraculous ladybug also defies the trope, but in a mixed race context (Chinese-French).

And yet every time Hollywood adapts a Japanese property they seem to be unable to find any Asian actors in California to portray any Major roles.

> And yet every time Hollywood adapts a Japanese property they seem to be unable to find any Asian actors in California to portray any Major roles.

Hollywood wants major established Hollywood names that are perceived as major draws in and of themselves in major roles on any major projects. Insofar as the output of that process has apparent racial bias (and it does, significantly) it's largely an effect of the fact that the process by which one becomes an established Hollywood name with big perceived drawing power involves many, many sources of bias.

Re: Apple Removes New York Times Apps from iTunes Store in China

#187

Post by xkcd-sucks »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #119
Inconel wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never seen the movie, were the scenes prior to HK taking place in mainland China?

Yes, in Beijing! But they didn't stay there long, and nothing really happened there. It was such a weird plot element that it stood out like a huge sore thumb.

Maybe the transformers don't have the right license plates to drive in Beijing every day of the week

Re: Apple Removes New York Times Apps from iTunes Store in China

#188

Post by rdlecler1 »

elcapitan wrote: post #165

There was an interesting talk on the economics of internet censorship at 33c3, you can watch it here: https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-8170-the_economic_consequences_o... One aspect I found interesting was the hypothesis that states like China use censorship also as a strategic tool to strengthen their own business (Baidu vs Google for example).

China is a manufacturing economy, while the US is an information economy. This makes two way trade difficult because China wants control of information. It's hard to put up a tariff on Chinese products but it's easy to introduce information controls that cripple American business models.

Re: Apple Removes New York Times Apps from iTunes Store in China

#189

Post by seanmcdirmid »

xkcd-sucks wrote: post #187
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, in Beijing! But they didn't stay there long, and nothing really happened there. It was such a weird plot element that it stood out like a huge sore thumb.

Maybe the transformers don't have the right license plates to drive in Beijing every day of the week

Ha! Sorry Optimus, you'll need to take the subway today.

Re: Apple Removes New York Times Apps from iTunes Store in China

#190

Post by seanmcdirmid »

joncrocks wrote: post #162
Inconel wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assassinating the US President is a pretty standard device plot in many action movies and TV shows. In fact, if you had to judge Americans by our movies, you'd probably think we're all obsessed with killing the President. Also, I could be out of the loop but I don't think the Pearl Harbor attacks are matters of national security any more.

Attempting assassination yes. That is a very common plot device. By the president actually getting assassinated, i.e. it being successful? That's a bit harder to find.

Not that hard though.
Post reply on HN