The reason why actor Brad Pitt was banned from entering China for 19 years is being re-examined.
On February 4th (local time), media outlet South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported on why Brad Pitt was banned from entering China after appearing in the 1997 movie “Seven Years in Tibet”.
“Seven Years in Tibet” is based on the 1952 memoir of Austrian mountaineer and sergeant Heinrich Harrer, who spent 7 years in Tibet due to WW2. Here, Heinrich experienced various ups and downs, and even got imprisoned in a prisoner-of-war camp in the Himalayas.
In the movie, Heinrich Harrer (played by Brad Pitt), meets and befriends the young Dalai Lama. However, the peace is short-lived, and Tibet is invaded by China. In the end, the two went their separate ways, and Heinrich was in a situation where he had to return to Austria.
In the end, the Chinese government condemned the release of this movie.
To make matters worse, the film’s distributor was Sony Pictures. Sony Pictures’ parent company, Sony, made a fortune selling electronic products in China. The government was thus indignant at the fact that Sony Pictures produced a film that reveals China’s bare face.
Eventually, China imposed a 19-year ban on Brad Pitt, which was lifted early in 2014. Brad Pitt is known to have visited Shanghai with his children in 2014 ahead of the release of the movie “Maleficent”, which starred Angelina Jolie, in China.
Source: wikitree
