Avatar's Critique of the polity and philosophy is in the eye of the beholder:BANNED IN CHINA

Here is the choice: a blockbuster involving noble aliens, evil humans and stunning effects that is breaking cinematic records all over the world. Or a patriotic film featuring the life of Confucius.

In China the public may not be given the choice at all. Despite long queues for tickets to see Avatar — which was expected to earn more than 500 million yuan (£45 million) at the Chinese box office — reports claim that the film will be removed from screens for being subversive.

Hong Kong’s Apple Daily reported that the state-run China Film Group had instructed cinemas nationwide to stop showing the 2-D version of Avatar from January 23 on orders from Beijing’s propaganda chiefs.

It is not just the desire to entertain the masses with a Chinese movie that has prompted the censors to step in and pull James Cameron’s hit from 2-D screens. The Government fears that too many citizens might be making a link between the plight of Avatar’s Na’vi people as they are thrown off their land and the numerous, often brutal, evictions endured closer to home by residents who get in the way of property developers.

The newspaper said: “Reportedly, the authorities have two reasons for this check on Avatar: first, it has taken in too much money and has seized market share from domestic films, and second, it may lead audiences to think about forced removal, and may possibly incite violence.”

China’s favourite blogger, Han Han, a twentysomething writer and racing-car driver, was among those who quickly spotted the similarity between the film’s plot and real life. He wrote: “For audiences in other countries, such brutal eviction is something beyond their imagination. It could only take place on another planet — or in China.”

Popular views of the film as an allegory for predatory property developers across China will not have gone down well with the Propaganda Department in Beijing.