It's been a busy summer for China's censors, who have banned the Jackie Chan action film Rush Hour 3 and are also cracking down on violent and disturbing video games and comics.
The decision to ban Rush Hour 3 is a major shock because the star, Jackie Chan, is hugely popular in China. It follows weeks of speculation that the movie was proving politically contentious.
The state-run Film Bureau said it had withheld permission for commercial reasons - a surprising justification given the first two instalments of the franchise did fantastically well at the box office.
"We think it will not be popular in China," said Xiao Ping of the state-owned China Film Group's import and export arm.
China only allows 20 foreign films to be imported a year, and any films that are allowed in are monitored for off-message political content or anything which portrays China in a bad light.
Foreign films are often withdrawn if they prove too popular, such as with The Da Vinci Code, which was breaking box-office records but was pulled to make way for Chinese films.
Some people in the business believe censors object to a scene featuring a Chinese organised crime family, which Chan and Chris Tucker's characters take on during a visit to Paris.
The issue of organised crime is politically sensitive in China, as greater economic openness has been accompanied by the emergence of Triad-style gangs.
Censors recently cut scenes of Hong Kong actor Chow Yun-fat as a bald, scarred pirate in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, saying the images insulted China's people. Mission Impossible III was also cut for showing laundry on a line in Shanghai, giving a negative image of the financial metropolis.
Officials are also continuing their crackdown on the popular Japanese manga comic, Death Note, because Beijing authorities believe it promotes death fantasies. The authorities have also closed a website which allowed users to watch or post videos based on the banned novel.
Yang Yong, an official with the Shanghai Culture Inspection General Team, said all videos on the website, including cartoon and live-action descriptions of hoped-for deaths, have been deleted. "This is the first website we have caught to spread Death Note. We welcome reports about other Shanghai-based websites involved in spreading such works," Yang said.
In June, China confiscated 6,000 Death Note comics as part of a campaign it began in April against horror publications deemed harmful for children and other "illegal, terrifying publications". Death Note centres on a teenage boy who punishes evildoers by using a notebook that kills anyone whose name is written in it. The comic has sold 26 million copies in Japan and has been made into a film - also banned in China.
Chinese authorities said the comic contained "elements of mystery, death and revenge, and are harmful to children's psychological development".
Last month, images of bones and skeletons disappeared from the Chinese version of online fantasy game World of Warcraft, apparently "to promote a healthy and harmonious online environment". The images fell foul of the government's bid to clean up the web and protect China's mainly young internet users from "negative online influences".
