Movies in China and the Power of the Internet

There is a movie playing in China - which is nothing unusual. The unusual part is that it wasn't one of the movies that broke records, until actors behind the scene became more active.

We are talking about the Chinese film "Life Translated". The film was written by 25-year-old Li Qianni, known as Niuniu, who not only stars in it but is also the daughter of Li Yizhen, a deputy secretary of the Communist Party of China Committee in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen.

And apparently, as the movie didn't take off, her father started to send messages to schools asking them to buy tickets for the movie and start seeing it.

This is nothing unusual as well in this country that still is not as open as many would like to see it, where corruption is rampant and much larger scandals involving banking and real estate fraud remain unresolved.

But what happened than is that the power of the Internet came to bear. Already, we have more than 600,000 active blogs in China, there are around 111 million Internet users in China, which makes it the world's largest Internet community after the US.

And they started to complain online about this move. Some Internet users are describing the "movie scandal as "Shenzhen's BMW incident." Others are calling for the father's resignation.

"Mr. Li, step down. Go home and study the Three Represents," one person wrote, referring to the slogan of former President Jiang Zemin that has become a catchphrase about how the government should serve the interests of the people."

What does this show? That China's population is awakening, openminded and increasingly critical.

Even the Communist Party considers corruption a serious threat to its rule and has launched many campaigns to clean up the system. "Now that this case is out in the open, critics say, it will be difficult for Beijing to ignore."