TVB Uses CGI to Censor Cleavage in “The Empress of China”
TVB hired an expert CGI team to cover up the cleavage-revealing costumes in Fan Bingbing’s (范冰冰) historical drama The Empress of China <武則天>, which is scheduled to broadcast seven days a week on TVB in April.
The 82-episode epic series, which will be reduced to 70 episodes in the TVB Cantonese-dubbed version, incurred some controversy when it aired on Mainland China’s Hunan TV in January. The actresses’ costumes were deemed too revealing by Chinese censors, and Hunan TV had to temporarily halt broadcast to re-edit the drama. This resulted in the censored scenes to show only the characters’ heads rather than their bodies. Despite complaints on the shoddy editing, The Empress of China managed to pick up in ratings after it was put back on air, eventually becoming one of Hunan TV’s highest-rated programs in recent years.
Though TVB previously announced it would air the uncensored version, the station said recently that it will air a “moderate version” instead, and hired a special CGI team to cover the actresses’ cleavage with a chiffon layer. Despite the moderate censorship, the CGI in TVB’s version was praised for looking realistic and detailed.
Taiwan’s CTi Entertainment, however, will be airing the uncut, uncensored version starting March 30.
Produced at 300 million RMB, one of China’s most expensive dramas in history, The Empress of China is about the life of of Wu Meiniang, Ancient China’s first and only empress sovereign. It also stars Zhang Fengyi (張豐毅), Aarif Lee (李治廷), Janine Chang (張鈞甯), Zhang Ting (張庭), and Kathy Chow (周海媚).
TVB invited Joey Yung (容祖兒) and Jinny Ng (吳若希) to sing the drama’s Cantonese opening and ending theme songs, respectively.
Source: ihktv.com
This article is written by Addy for JayneStars.com.
Damn, they probably could have got higher ratings with the boobs version
Where can I watch the “uncensored” version?
Taiwan will be airing on 3/30 and it is the uncensored version
man why does tvb have to ruin a good show???
um excuse me kingma but this isn’t a good show
At least it looks better than the big head shots. And TVB actually colour matched the extra layer so the costumes still looks fabulous. I guess that much cleavage does not affect the storyline which is cliched and bland in my opinion anyway.
What;s the need to do that?! Come one issit vulgar? Worse than the rape scenes and make out scenes and bad kissing scenes? This is getting too PC.
I agree with your comment Funn. Why does TVB need to even sensor it? Cleavage-revealing costumes is portraying historically correct period costumes, which can’t be worst than TVB’s own costumes, overdone cliche “sexy” scenes or rape scenes?! Unless TVB chose to censor it for overseas markets and sell this edited version to Malaysia or Singapore…if they can actually do that?
Sigh…I was really looking forward to an unedited version of this drama and watch it in canto =/
I guess recently, parents are more aware and concerned over what their kids are watching.
I remember as a child I could watch people get killed on screen. But now whenever I watch an episode there’s a warning of violence even though it was just a punch with no blood.
“I agree with your comment Funn. Why does TVB need to even sensor it? Cleavage-revealing costumes is portraying historically correct period costumes, which can’t be worst than TVB’s own costumes, overdone cliche “sexy” scenes or rape scenes?! Unless TVB chose to censor it for overseas markets and sell this edited version to Malaysia or Singapore…if they can actually do that?
Sigh…I was really looking forward to an unedited version of this drama and watch it in canto =/”
Same here. TVB nowadays has too many chiefs and not enough indians. LOL 😀
Im sure if TVB shows the uncensored version there’ll be lots of conplaints again
Just started watching the drama…man, the costumes are beautiful! Also, impressed with Zhang Ting’s performance. Haven’t seen her in such a role before.
FBB looks like she’s missing a bewb in that screenshot. Is that what they meant by CGI covering?
Also who knows what lipsticks these ladies are wearing? They’re so gorgeous. Whoever did makeup for this batch of artists did an amazing job. It’s really a that they covered up all the fashion designs in th drama – I think that’s one of their best selling points.
I can’t stand FBB’s orange lipstick. She’s looks so pale! Also, red lipstick didn’t work on Kathy’s overall look. The others were decent.
better watch out.. cleavage will ruin the world.
She looks yummy. LOL 😀
it’s a good thing to cut down the # of episodes, mainland dramas are too draggy. 82 ep, oh lord….
actually, I watched till episode 28 before YouTube clamped down. The cleavage not too much and the costume with pretty girls quite pleasant to watch. Too bad, it got censored.
Not sure women were allowed to dress like this in the old days, especially in the palace. But I could be wrong. I thought the series was great until all the concubines died and the series got a bit boring from that point on.
It’s cleavage. Chill out. TVB has become such slaves to viewers’ demands. Now they’re censoring before the complaints even arise, just to be safe. Since they have complete monopoly over HK’s broadcasting anyway, why don’t they just tell people to take it or leave it? If people don’t like cleavage, then they can direct their eyeballs to look at another part of the TV screen.