Brad Pitt was banned from entering China for almost 20 years for a film he starred in back in 1997. The plot of the movie, which was based on a historical event in the mid-twentieth century, led the Chinese government to punish the famous actor.
‘Seven Years in Tibet’ was released in 1997. Directed by Jean-Jacques, the movie tells the story of Heinrich Harrer, an Austrian mountaineer who in 1939 left his family to venture on an expedition to the Himalayas.
Banned due to the plot
When World War II broke out, Heinrich and his companions were taken prisoners by British troops. Years later, in 1944, he managed to escape and reached the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, Lhasa, where he met and befriended a young Dalai Lama. The two became friends before the invasion of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in 1950.
“For an audience it’s two hours, but for me it’s a half year of living,” Pitt told the Interview Magazine.
“And this one particularly. Being in a different culture for so long, you couldn’t help but walk out of there with something.”
Pitt didn’t set foot in China until 2014
The film was banned throughout China by Beijing’s censorship bureaus because of the negative way it portrayed the country and the military. Therefore, Pitt could not enter China from 1997 until 2014, when he accompanied Angelina Jolie to Shanghai to promote her movie ‘Maleficent’.