A Chinese historical war film depicting the Qing dynasty’s 17th-century conquest of Taiwan has been pulled from cinemas just days before its scheduled premiere.
The movie, “The Belief” (also known as Battle of Penghu in its Chinese title, 澎湖海戰), was due to be released on July 25. But as of Thursday, the film had not secured a public screening license, known colloquially as the “dragon seal” (龍標), and ticket pre-sales remained unavailable on booking platforms in China.
The trailer for the film was released last October on the 80th anniversary of the retrocession of Taiwan to the Republic of China from the Japanese colonial era, with a narration declaring: “Lead the fleet, take Penghu, and capture Taiwan.” Penghu is an archipelago of 90 islands and islets in the Taiwan Strait, located about 50 kilometers west of Taiwan and 140 kilometers east of China. The trailer ended with a slogan superimposed on screen: “Unifying Taiwan cannot be stopped.”
The film was approved for production in 2021 and shot in 2024. It dramatizes the 1683 campaign in which Shi Lang (施琅), an admiral in the Qing dynasty, led a naval assault on Penghu that ended the Kingdom of Tungning. This polity was established by Koxinga in Taiwan after he defeated the Dutch in 1662.
The film’s use of a historical military campaign to comment on China’s contemporary approach to Taiwan may have triggered censorship concerns. Liu Hsing-jen (劉性仁), an associate professor at Chinese Culture University’s Institute for National Development and Cross-Strait Studies in Taiwan, pointed out that because the trailer depicts cross-strait relations as a life-or-death struggle, it may actually run counter to Beijing’s current strategy, which combines a push for peaceful reunification with escalating grey zone pressure.
Some critics argue that the film puts forward an anti Han message, with the depiction of a Manchurian-led Qing force attacking a Han Chinese regime. They also say that it would be better framed as a story about Koxinga restoring Taiwan by defeating the Dutch, who colonized Taiwan at the time.
If the film is not released this weekend, it suggests authorities are “putting politics ahead of art and history,” Liu added.
China’s National Film Administration has no record of The Belief holding a screening license, according to Chinese state media. A staff member at Jiangsu Xinghao, the production company that holds the rights to the film, said the company had not received a notice of cancellation. But it has been more than a month since the latest update on the film’s Weibo page, the Chinese equivalent of X.
The film’s cancellation is part of Beijing’s broader effort to control cultural products that contain political messaging. Taiwan’s government has repeatedly warned against using historical or cultural content to justify unification by force, while Beijing insists Taiwan is an inalienable part of China.
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, or MAC, the body the governs relations between Taiwan and China, said: “MAC views Beijing’s attempt to link historical events with its cross-strait narrative on Taiwan that carries the messaging of ‘unification by force’ as purely CCP propaganda and cognitive warfare, containing little significance to them. Taiwanese society generally views these efforts with little reaction.”
The Belief was one of the several high-profile productions expected to anchor China’s box office this summer, which has struggled to rebound after the COVID-19 pandemic.
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