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“World of Warcraft” movie and China’s censors

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Some Chinese are calling it the first great Chinese film of 2010. It’s an online satire that has gotten more than a million hits since it went online a week ago. It’s called “The War of Internet Addiction,” and it’s set in Azeroth, the fantasy land where the online game “World of Warcraft” takes place. Millions of Chinese play World of Warcraft, and the Chinese government doesn’t necessarily like that fact. The hour-long film skewers Chinese officials for trying to censor and control the game. The World’s Mary Kay Magistad reports from Beijing.

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MARCO WERMAN: Some are calling it the first great Chinese movie of 2010.  But it’s not playing in theaters.  It’s an online satire.  The hour long film takes place in Aziroth the fantasy setting for the online game World of Warcraft.  The game has over 11,000,000 users worldwide, half of them in China.  As The World’s Mary Kay Magistad reports, the film skewers Chinese officials for trying to censor it.

MARY KAY MAGISTAD: What’s an online gamer to do in China when even the fantasy world gets dragged into Chinese politics?  World of Warcraft player Xingan Yu Mi recruited 100 fellow players and made a movie.  It’s called The War of Internet Addiction and it’s set almost entirely within the animated video game world of Aziroth.  It pits sinister forces against World of Warcraft players.  There’s the green damn, a Chinese government promoted filtering software.  There are the forces of harmony, a swipe at the Communist Party’s insistence on building a harmonious society; one where people don’t challenge the government.  And there’s the evil Uncle Yon, loosely based on a real person who treats so-called internet addiction with electric shock.  Uncle Yon tries to lock up the hero, Khan.  But Khan escapes and tries to rally other World of Warcraft players.  Yon catches up with him.  He says, “you think you can get away?  All of you internet addicts are coming with us.  I’m here to cure you.”  And then, Khan steps up with the seminal speech of the film, an impassioned defense of unfettered online gaming.  It’s a “we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore” cree de corps.

INTERPRETER:  You say we’re addicted to World of Warcraft?  Well yes, we’re addicted, but not to the game.  We’re addicted to the sense of belonging the game gives us, to our friendships.  I and everyone else who loves this game dutifully go to work in crowded buses, consume food without knowing what chemicals are inside.  We cried for the Szechuan earthquake and cheered for the Olympics and never wanted out country to fall behind any other in any way.  But this past year, because of you people, we couldn’t compete in the game we love.  You brainwashed me since I was young that nowhere was better than home.  But now, you’re even taking away my emotional home?  Forget that!

MARY KAY MAGISTAD: And then he shouts something that in Chinese could mean grass mud horse.  It’s a homonym for an expletive that can’t be repeated here and the homonym has become popular internet speak to get around the censors.  Khan’s speech is packed with inside references about the Chinese government’s attempts to control the internet and gaming in particular.  Over the past year World of Warcraft has passed from one server to another in China.  Two government departments are fighting over who controls it’s future and it’s profits and it was suspended for months.  For now, the game is still accessible and for the moment is the spoof.  At the climax, the hero, Khan, calls for everyone to raise their hands in support of the game.  The evil Uncle Yon jeers at him.  He says, “useless Khan.  These kids taught by our society don’t have the courage to oppose us.  Prepare to die!  Harmony electric shock!”  But then, all around the fantasy world of Aziroth players say silence is not obedience and they pump their fists into the air sending balls of light that strike Yon and smite him dead.  But this is a world where spirits walk and as Yon’s rises above his body it speaks.  He says “Don’t think you’ve defeated the green dam and the force of harmony.  I won’t die.  This force is something you players will never be able to defeat.”  If that’s true, at least the filmmaker and his friends are going to go down laughing.  For The World, I’m Mary Kay Magistad in Beijing.

MARCO WERMAN: And we have a link to a version of the film with English subtitles at the world dot org.

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