Bangkok, Thailand - Christian groups as far away as South Korea, Thailand and India protested against the movie The Da Vinci Code ahead of tomorrow’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.
They were planning boycotts, a hunger strike and attempts to block or shorten screenings.
Playing on the opening night at the 59th Cannes festival caps a huge marketing blitz for Ron Howard’s adaptation of Dan Brown’s best seller.
The movie is not competing for prizes at the glitzy two-week film-festival in southern France, which runs until May 28.
Tom Hanks and other stars of the movie set off for Cannes from London today aboard a train named The Da Vinci Code in pursuit of a world record for the longest non-stop international train journey.
But the plot of the movie, in which Jesus marries Mary Magdalene and has children, has outraged some Christians.
In South Korea, which has 13 million Protestants and 4.6 million Roman Catholics, a court ruled today that a Christian group’s request for an injunction to block screenings lacked merit, clearing the way for the local distributor to show the movie from Thursday as scheduled.
“As it is clear that the novel and movie are all fiction … there is no probability that the movie can make viewers mistakenly believe the contents of the movie are facts,” chief judge Song Jin-hyun said in his ruling.
The Christian Council of Korea, an umbrella group of 63 South Korean Protestant denominations, said it respected the ruling, but would lead a boycott of the movie, which it said defiles the sanctity of Jesus Christ and distorts facts.
In Thailand, Christian groups demanded that government censors cut the film’s final 15 minutes, fix subtitles that were supposedly disrespectful to Jesus and screen messages before and after the movie saying the content is fictional.
“If they are going to screen this, we asked that they cut out the conclusion of the movie that Jesus still has heirs alive today,” said spokesman Manoch Jangmook, of the Evangelical Fellowship of Thailand.
Thai censors and a group claiming to represent Thai Christians watched the movie today. After the special showing, police agreed to cut the last 10 minutes of the film.
A spokesman for the Evangelical Fellowship of Thailand told the AP that the group objects to the part of the film that mentions Jesus having heirs alive today. Under today's agreement, Thais won't see that part of the film in the theatre.
In mostly Hindu India, which is also home to 18 million Roman Catholics, Joseph Dias, head of the Catholic Secular Forum, began a hunger strike in downtown Bombay and said other people were joining him.
“We want the movie to be banned,” he said. It is set for release in India on Friday.
But the Rev. Myron Pereira, a Roman Catholic priest who is a member of the Central Board of Film Certification that cleared the movie – with one proviso - said there was no reason to reject it.
He said the contention that Christ married was “fictional and the film also implies that the Church is covering it up. But it does not portray anything in an obscene fashion. People can protest about anything since we live in a democracy.”
Pereira said the censors ordered that the movie’s disclaimer – which notes it is a work of fiction and not intended to harm the feelings of any community – be moved to the beginning for the Indian release.
Philippine censors approved an adult rating for the movie but stopped short of rating it “X” because “it does not constitute a clear, express or direct attack on the Catholic church or religion” and does not libel or defame any person.
The movie review panel’s chairwoman, Marissa Laguardia, said the movie would be a “test of faith” for many people in the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines.
“Those groups, like the conservatives who want it banned, maybe they can tell their friends, discourage their friends from watching it,” she said. “But it has to be shown. Otherwise we will be the only country that will not show this film. Thirty-six countries have already reviewed this film and they have not banned it. So are we just out of the Stone Age?”
The National Council of Churches in Singapore, which also had requested a ban, planned lectures to refute aspects of the film and the book on which it is based.
The censorship board gave the movie a NC16 rating, barring viewers under 16, arguing that “only a mature audience will be able to discern and differentiate between fact and fiction.”