Uh oh, looks like a movie poster from Hollywood movie “Arrival” has accidentally sparked an uproar when one particular detail was superimposed onto Hong Kong Island’s landscape.
The 12 individual posters released by Paramount Pictures show 12 different cities around the world, as mysterious aliens arrive, presumably to take over the planet. One of those posters had a geography error by including Shanghai’s Oriental Pearl Tower on Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour in the bottom right of the image.
The blunder took the film’s tagline “Why Are They Here?” to a whole new level when netizens flooded the social media post with the hashtags – #HongKongIsNotChina, #HongKongIndependence, and #WhyOrientalPearlTowerHere – while criticising the oversight of the marketing designer.
“Please remove this ugly tower from Victoria Harbour,” Facebook user Chin Chiu-man wrote, while another angry user commented: “Why don’t you put a pyramid in New York”. Cherry Ben took it even further when he said, “Lets boycott this piece of shit. Putting the f**king tower in Vic. Harbour doesn’t mean it represents China you f**king idiot.”
The poster which was displayed on the movie’s official Facebook page has since been removed by the admin.
In case you weren’t aware about the socio-political situation between the 2 countries, Hong Kong was previously a British colony until 1997. Since then, tension between Hong Kong and mainland China has escalated, especially in recent years, when it called for its independence from China altogether.
Based on sci-fi writer Ted Chiang’s short story “Story of Your Life”, the synopsis for “Arrival” is as follows:
“When mysterious spacecrafts touch down across the globe, an elite team – lead by expert linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) – is brought together to investigate. As mankind teeters on the verge of global war, Banks and the team race against time for answers – and to find them, she will take a chance that could threaten her life, and quite possibly humanity.”
Watch the official trailer below:
So do y’all think this hiccup will hurt the film’s international box office?
Arrival hits theatres on 11th November 2016.
Sources: Inverse, io9, Variety.
