It looks like Tom Holland won’t be making landfall in Vietnam’s theaters after all. The country banned Holland’s action-adventure film “Uncharted” over a scene featuring a map that shows China’s favored territorial claims in the South China Sea.
The map in question includes the “nine-dash line,” which is used on official Chinese maps to illustrate and lay claim to the South China Sea, an area rich in natural resources. The problem is that Vietnam considers these islands as a part of their own territory. The fight over this has waged on for years.
This is not the first time the communist-run country has blocked Hollywood content for the same reasons. Dreamworks’ 2019 “Abominable” was censored and blocked because of the nine-dash line, and last year’s Netflix film “Pine Gap” was also blocked.
“Uncharted” opened in China on Monday and is on track to earn about $15 million more than any Hollywood film has ever made in Vietnam. The film also stars Mark Walhberg, and Antonio Banderas was supposed to have arrived in Vietnamese cinemas on March 18.
