Keanu Reeves is the latest celebrity to run afoul of China’s censors. His movies have been scrubbed from China’s video streaming sites, including Tencent Video, Youku and Bilibili, after he participated in a Tibet-related concert earlier in March.
Searching on these platforms for movies starring Reeves, such as The Matrix, Speed and John Wick, returns no results. It is reported that at least 19 films with Keanu Reeves have been removed from Tencent Video, with similar purges happening across other Chinese streaming sites. Not only that, but even searching his name turned up nothing on search engines.
Because of the opacity behind how China’s censorship works, no one quite know if the latest purge is directed by China’s regulatory agencies or a preemptive move by these platforms to remove potentially problematic content.
All these happened because Reeves participated virtually in a concert on 3rd March organised by Tibet House US, a New York-based non-profit affiliated with the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader. China has accused the Dalai Lama, now exiled in India, of inciting the independence movement in Tibet, a remote western region that China has controlled since 1951.
Reeves, who has been a household name in China since the 1990s, joins a list of celebrities that is no longer welcomed in China for a growing assortment of things China finds offensive – including support for Tibet, Taiwan and Hong Kong, bad behaviour, being too effeminate, or even just being Winnie the Pooh. This list includes names like Richard Gere, Lady Gaga, and Katy Perry. Chinese celebrities are not exempt either, with one of China’s most recognisable names, Vicki Zhao Wei disappearing from China’s walled internet virtually overnight.
The purge does not bode well for Keanu Reeves’s upcoming works, including the animation DC League of Super-Pets with Dwayne Johnson, and John Wick: Chapter 4 with Donnie Yen. Will Reeves, or his upcoming movies, be able to dodge this bullet?
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