Actor Keanu Reeves may now be kaput in China, despite his past close collaboration with its film authorities and decades of mega-stardom spanning the length of the country’s engagement with Hollywood.
In the wake of his show of support for Tibet earlier this month, the “John Wick” and “Matrix” star has fallen afoul of the country’s strict censorship regime, placing his future career in the world’s largest film market in jeopardy.
In January, reports broke that Reeves would participate in a March 3 benefit concert for Tibet House, a New York-based nonprofit affiliated with the exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
The development emerged just after his latest film “The Matrix: Resurrections” became the first blockbuster to hit Chinese theaters in over two months, ending an unusually prolonged drought of censorship approvals on U.S. titles in a year of rising geopolitical tensions and a further cooling of relations with Hollywood.
U.S. entertainment companies chased short-term profits while China’s propaganda apparatus played the long game. Guess who won.
Given that Beijing vehemently rejects any claims of Tibetan independence and views the Nobel Peace Prize laureate as a dangerous “separatist,” the news enraged Chinese nationalists, who stormed social media with insults, vowing to boycott the film. It remained in theaters, however, and March 3 came and went with no apparent consequences for Reeves.
But the axe has now fallen — albeit more quietly than many expected.
Last Monday, China’s major streamers removed the vast majority of Reeves’ filmography from their sites and wiped search results related to his name in Chinese — the cumbersome transliteration “Jinu Liweisi.”
“Sorry, no results related to ‘Keanu Reeves’ were found,” the platform iQiyi now states, adding: “Due to relevant laws, regulations and policies, some results are not shown.”
Deleted films include “The Matrix” trilogy, “Speed,” “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” and romances including “Something’s Gotta Give” and “The Lake House.”
At least 19 films starring Reeves were removed from the Tencent Video platform, while all but one — “Toy Story 4” — were removed from other top streamers Youku and Migu Video. Sites like Bilibili and Xigua Video also saw purges. Though “Toy Story 4,” which features Reeves as the voice of motorcycle-riding stuntman Duke Caboom, remains online, its credits are unusual: They unfurl in English except for the voice cast, which alone switches over to Chinese and lists only the local dubbing cast, avoiding any mention of Reeves’ name.
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