It's interesting to note that people here don't really use the phrase, "movie theater." They instead say "cinema," since that's what they're taught in textbooks. Incidentally, both are pretty hard for Chinese people to pronounce. I wanted to share my experience of going to the theater, mostly because it left us puzzled. The theaters here are about the same as theaters back home. They have the same decor, sell the same snacks, and show movies on similarly sized screens. An average movie costs 38 yuan, which amounts to five dollars and change. There's a limit on how many foreign films can be shown every year in China, with the most mainstream making the cut, and there's usually one version with Chinese subtitles and one with dubbed voices. The Chinese love to dub.
A few of us went to see Iron Man 2, and, as with many films here, there was some mild censorship. You might be expecting me to decry the fact that free speech is suppressed, artistic expression stifled, etc., but really, it didn't affect my enjoyment of the movie--it was just odd. Scenes that included the landscape and language of Russia were left intact, but the English word "Russia" and any variations thereof were either removed or electronically garbled:
http://shanghaiist.com/2010/05/09/chinas_bizarre_censorship_of_iron_m_1.php
I've seen a couple of other movies in Wuhan, but the editing wasn't nearly as noticeable. And in general, I sort of understand the reasoning behind it, but this particular case is hard to explain. Maybe I should go out and pick up the bootleg DVD, for comparison's sake. They're usually good copies, if you don't mind the lower quality. And the typos on the packaging are always hilarious.
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