Blood and cuts

A FLYING dagger stabs a Japanese soldier in the heart. Another fighter has his neck slit by a Chinese secret agent. Others are shot at close range, gassed or drowned. Like war dramas everywhere, “Royalty in Blood”, a 36-part television series about the war between China and Japan from 1937-45, is pretty gory. Yet unlike elsewhere, the on-screen violence is not just for adult viewers. It is aired each week at 7.35pm, the most popular television-watching hour, when even very young children in China have yet to go to bed.

All films and TV shows are vetted by a government committee. Oddly, however, China has no ratings system to denote a film’s suitability for certain age-groups. It has no TV “watershed” either, as many countries do, dividing the day into family-oriented programming and late-night viewing with more adult content. Violent TV dramas are sometimes shown on public transport. Ticket sales at cinemas increased nearly 50% in the first 11 months of 2015 on the previous year to reach $6.3 billion, a total surpassed only by America. Yet questions are often raised about whether films are safe and appropriate for children, who can watch any of them.