China OKs film on sensitive Taiwan-Japan relations

By Ralph Jennings

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan's biggest local box office hit, a love story involving its former colonizer Japan, has been approved for screening in China despite Beijing's skittish view of Tokyo-Taipei relations, the director said on Wednesday.

Chinese authorities, who can censor films that go against government interests, will allow the award-winning "Cape No. 7" to be shown uncut to its huge cinema audiences, he said.

"I was really surprised," director Wei Te-sheng told Reuters. "I hope mainland Chinese audiences can look at a different culture with tolerance."

The film follows two Taiwan people who fall in love with Japanese, one of whom was involved in Taiwan's colonization between 1895 and 1945. Their stories reflect the tight bonds, both then and now, between Taiwan and Japan.

China has claimed sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan since 1949, when Mao Zedong's Communists won the Chinese civil war and Chiang Kai-shek's KMT fled to the island. Beijing has vowed to bring Taiwan under its rule, by force if necessary.

Beijing authorities distrust Taiwan's relations with Japan, where leaders have hinted they favor Taipei over Beijing, in part because of warm ties left over from colonization.

China criticizes Japan to this day over its invasion and occupation of much of mainland China between 1931 and 1945.

"I didn't use politics to talk about history. I used love," said Wei, 40, whose film has earned about T$446 million ($13.4 million) in box office revenue in Taiwan, making it the most popular movie ever made locally. "It should be no problem."

"Cape No. 7," a 129-minute comedy which also takes potshots at Taiwan society, opened on the island in late August. It was made on a budget of just T$50 million.

In the movie, which follows the joke-riddled formation of an amateur rock band, the singer falls for the Japanese concert organizer. She persuades him to use his job as a postal carrier to deliver a stack of old love letters to an aging Taiwan woman whose Japanese beau left her during the colonial period.

"Cape No. 7" is also set to screen in Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea, and has been entered for a best foreign language Oscar award. Wei plans to direct another Japan-Taiwan theme movie in late 2009.

(Editing by Roger Crabb)