Movie starring Amy Adams, Forest Whitaker faces backlash for photoshopping Shanghai landmark into Hong Kong for poster

“Arrival”, an upcoming sci-fi movie starring Amy Adams and Forest Whitaker, has stirred up quite a bit of controversy today after netizens pointed out that one of its promo photos showed a Shanghai landmark unceremoniously shoehorned into the Hong Kong skyline.


Photo: Arrival Movie via Facebook

Looks like all that time spent in Photoshop could have been better utilised by researching Sino-Hong Kong relations, huh?

The poster is one of 12 released on the movie’s official Facebook earlier this week, which features alien spacecrafts hovering over various places in the world with the tagline “Why are they here?”.

Hundreds of Hongkongers have taken it upon themselves to pose the very same question to the creators of the photo; although they’re not referring to the hovering spaceship so much as Shanghai’s Oriental Pearl tower sticking out like a sore thumb against Victoria Harbour.


The Oriental Pearl Tower (L) in Shanghai, where it normally lives. Photo: Wikipedia

Since noon today, netizens have been bombarding the picture with hundreds of comments, predominantly featuring the hashtag #HongKongisnotChina. Of the 800+ people who reacted to the photo on Facebook, over 640 chose the “angry face” expression offered by Facebook’s Reactions feature.

In response to the photo caption, which reads, “Friend, foe, or something in between? #WhyAreTheyHere” one commenter said, “Friend: middle [the spaceship]. Foe: right-bottom [the Oriental Pearl tower]”.

One commenter suggested the film’s marketing personnel “do some research”, calling the gaffe “very distasteful”. “You may not care but this is pretty insulting to [Hongkongers].”

“Arrival”, which is to premiere at the Venice Film Festival this September, is based on a short story about the arrival of alien lifeforms, by Chinese-American author Ted Chiang.

UPDATE: The poster has now been removed from the film’s Facebook page, where they have issued an apology for the “wrong art” which was attributed to a “third party vendor”.

EDITOR’S NOTE: A previous version of this article stated that the Oriental Pearl Tower is on the Bund, which it is not. We regret the error.

 


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