The highly anticipated Warner Bros. film ‘Barbie’ was originally set to be released for many countries on July 21, including Vietnam.
Fox News reports that due to a specific version of the South China Sea map featured in the film, however, ‘Barbie’ has been banned and Vietnam will not see its release later this month.
The director general of the Vietnam Cinema Department told Tuoi Tre, the state-run newspaper, that Vietnam does not “grant license for the movie ‘Barbie’ to release in Vietnam because it contains the offending image of the nine-dash line.”
China has been using the nine-dash line in maps to assert its claim over much of the South China Sea, disregarding areas Vietnam considers to be its own and even going against a ruling from the United Nations in 2016.
The nine-dash line has been the cause of dispute with many other countries near China – including Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, and Malaysia. All those countries have competing and overlapping territorial claims, according to The News York Post.
CNN Entertainment identifies that ‘Barbie’ is the latest of a series of movies that have banned in Vietnam for depicting China’s controversial nine-dash line.
The movie stars Margie Robbie as Barbie and Simu Liu and Ryan Gosling as competing Kens.
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