Beijing started a major crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2019, long before most people suspected the Chinese Communist Party would violate the “one country, two systems,” policy that had been in place for decades. Beijing pushed through a so-called “national security law” allowing anyone in Hong Kong to be extradited to the mainland and the rest is history, as far as liberal democracy is concerned for Hong Kongers.
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Hong Kong officials published new guidelines in June of 2021 announcing that censors would start prohibiting any movie that supposedly threatened “national security.” And anyone who screens a forbidden movie can now face harsh penalties.
Once a city known for some of the most creative and dynamic movies in the world, Hong Kong now has to live with movie censorship like the rest of mainland China. And while tech savvy people can certainly get around censorship in creative ways in the privacy of their own home, the days of an outdoor movie screening for something like The Dark Knight appear to be over.