(TibetanReview.net, Nov11’23) – The lofty, meditative but very beautifully photographed film Kundun was a very personal story for Scorsese, tackling the true story of Tibet’s 14th Dalai Lama until China’s occupation and annexation of his homeland. However, now Disney has banned it in all its formats because it wanted to do business in China, which was infuriated by it, reported worldofreel.com Nov 10, citing The Foundation for Economic Education.
The movie’s existence infuriated China, which accuses the Dalai Lama of wishing to break free of Chinese control, although he only seeks genuine autonomy for his homeland under Chinese sovereignty.
China’s anger at the film began right from the beginning of its shooting.
When China heard that cameras had started rolling on Kundun in 1996, Disney received a call from the Chinese embassy. It said the Chinese government was very angry about the whole thing. “We are resolutely opposed to the making of this movie,” the report quoted a Chinese film bureau official as saying. “It is intended to glorify the Dalai Lama, so it is an interference in China’s internal affairs.”
Following it, “all of our business in China stopped overnight,” Disney CEO Michael Eisner was reported to have told The New York Times. Besides, Scorsese is still banned from entering China because of Kundun.
Christian Toto, an award-winning film critic, journalist and founder of Hollywood in Toto, has explained the damage control that Disney had to partake in to appease the Chinese Government backlash:
In October 1998, Disney CEO Michael Eisner met with Chinese premier Zhu Rongji to discuss plans to build a Disney theme park in China. Of Kundun he said, “The bad news is that the film was made; the good news is that nobody watched it.” He continued, adding, “Here I want to apologize, and in the future we should prevent this sort of thing, which insults our friends, from happening.”
It didn’t end there. China wanted to continue humiliating Disney by forcing them to buy the distribution rights to a pair of Chinese films and hire a Chinese performance group to help promote “Mulan” in Europe. This is how gangsters work.
The result? Twenty-six years after its release, Disney is keeping “Kundun” in a vault. Nobody is allowed to watch it. It’s not available to screen anywhere. An official trailer has been scratched off the internet. The only way to watch “Kundun” is to illegally download it on a Torrents site.
It’s also hard to find “Kundun” on physical media. Several Blu-ray editions of the film are marked “currently unavailable” on Amazon. You have to buy non-USA formats if you’re eager to revisit the film.
The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) investigated “Kundun’s” cultural banishment last month. They ended up producing a YouTube video titled, “The Movie Disney Doesn’t Want You to See,” which then went viral, garnering many clicks, but not really being covered by many journalists, save for Christian Toto.