December 9, 2020 A brief dialogue scene with a racist joke will be removed from the Monster Hunter movie worldwide following backlash in China.
The Monster Hunter movie is receiving edits worldwide after a joke with racist overtones caused the film to be pulled from Chinese theatres. Director Paul W. S. Anderson has issued an apology, as has Asian-American actor Jin Au-Yeung, who performed the line in the film.
The scene will be removed from all versions of the film worldwide. "I am absolutely devastated that a line from our movie, Monster Hunter, has offended some audience members in China" Anderson says in a statement provided to Deadline. "I apologize for any anxiety or upset that this line and its interpretation caused. Monster Hunter was made as fun entertainment and I am mortified that anything within it has caused unintentional offense. We have respectfully removed the line from the movie. It was never our intention to send a message of discrimination or disrespect to anyone. To the contrary - at its heart our movie is about unity."
The controversy became apparent to English-speaking game fans thanks to a thread on Twitter, where Niko Partners senior analyst Daniel Ahmad posted some footage of the dialogue for the movie, and ran-through why audience members are unhappy. In the scene, one character asks another "What kind of knees are these?" following up with "Chi-knees." The pair are American soldiers, as the protagonists are a team of military recruits that get transported to the world of the games. As Ahmad explains, this joke has racial connotations due to a playground chant used to disparage people of Asian heritage in English-speaking countries.
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