There’s a history here between Pooh Bear and the Communist Chinese leadership. The hostility toward the animated lovable bear and the commies spilled over into the movie release of the new Pooh movie, “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey.” Censorship is a way for officials to control the Chinese people.

Granted, the new Pooh movie sounds like garbage, at least to me. It’s a slasher movie. Sweet little Piglet stars in the movie, too. I have no doubt there is a market for the movie. The Chinese public won’t see it, though.

Film distributor VII Pillars Entertainment announced with “great regret” on Tuesday that the film’s Thursday release in Hong Kong and the neighboring Chinese territory of Macau had been canceled, without giving a reason.

“We are incredibly sorry for the disappointment and inconvenience,” it said in a Facebook post.

Earlier, the distributor had listed 30 movie theaters around Hong Kong where the film was set to be screened. It did not respond to requests for additional comment.

A screening that had been planned for Tuesday night was also canceled because of “technical reasons,” the organizer, Moviematic, said on Instagram.

“Technical reasons” must be code for censorship.

The Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration (OFNAA) enforces Hong Kong’s censorship rules and film classification. The distributor was issued a certificate of approval and OFNAA didn’t comment.

The history of hostility toward Winnie the Pooh goes back to the Obama administration. After a walk the two men took for the cameras in 2013, Obama and Xi were portrayed as Pooh and Tigger in a meme that went viral. It’s become a way for the Chinese people to refer to the Chinese leader and to voice dissent.

Seen on Weibo: Barack Obama and Xi Jinping are Tigger and Pooh http://t.co/shSFF6CFKH pic.twitter.com/yZxhJS4g3a

— Shanghaiist (@shanghaiist) June 11, 2013

References to Pooh have been censored on Chinese social media. “Christopher Robin”, Disney’s 2018 film, featured Winnie the Pooh and was not allowed to be released in mainland China.

The growing use of censorship in China has been a concern of Western countries in recent years. Officials aggressively cracked down on pro-democracy protests in 2019. In 2020, Beijing imposed a national security law that it said was necessary to restore stability. (Control) In 2021 Hong Kong passed a bill allowing officials to bar films thought to be contrary to national security interests. So, it tracks that the new movie is being yanked from theatres since Pooh is a symbol of Xi. Meh.

Thanks to the copyright lapsing after 95 years in effect, the movie was released with its trailer going viral. According to Rotten Tomatoes, I’m not the only person who thinks this movie is garbage. The movie gets a score of 4% on that site. Do people really want to see an axe-wielding Winnie the Pooh who is now half-man, half-bear? It is a little comforting that the reviews are bad. At least there’s that.