Black Panther has certainly been one of the biggest movies in recent times with the Ryan Coogler-directed Marvel superhero movie raking in over $1 billion worldwide.
Nothing more but ‘impressive’ has been all the blockbuster has been about in its performance in international markets. In China, the first all-black superhero movie has made over $66.6 million playing a major role in boosting Black Panther over the $1 billion margin.
Even though the movie sales were very impressive in China, there has been some harsh criticism and insensitive reactions from its audience.
Now, it is no mystery that China struggles with identifying with people of different racial identities which is very evident in some Chinese television and commercials by displaying content many viewers find racist and has created a fair amount of controversy. A typical example of this given by First Post is an advertisement for a detergent, which went viral on the internet back in May 2016, you can see a black man transform into a fair Chinese man after being pushed into a washing machine.
In another separate incident, John Boyega — who plays Finn in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Star Wars: The Last Jedi — was removed from the Chinese version of the poster for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. This, too, sparked a controversy and called into question the ability of the Chinese to watch black people in big Hollywood movies.
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Despite Black Panther’s good opening at the Chinese box-office, the movie has been criticised for being “too black” and “too dark”. These reviews are being published on the Chinese equivalent of IMDb – Douban – where Black Panther scored a 6.8 rating out of 10. On Rotten Tomatoes, Black Panther is presently running at 97%, which indicates nearly universal praise for the movie.
Some of the reviews on the website, which have been translated into English from Chinese by the websites Hip-Hop Wired and Quartz, read as follows:
“Maybe the Chinese are still not used to a film full of black people. Black Panther is black, all the major characters are black, a lot of scenes are black, the car-chasing scene is black — the blackness has really made me drowsy.”
“When I entered the theatre, a bunch of black people was fighting in the night… I’ve never been in a theatre so dark that I couldn’t find my seat.”
“The film is filled with black actors and actresses. Also, because the film’s colours are a bit dark, it’s nearly a torture for the eyes to watch the film’s 3D version in the theatre.
“Even if the screen with the highest brightness is selected, the movie still looks dark.”
