Whenever I want to find out who starred in a specific movie, or if a movie is worth watching, I fire up my Firefox browser and head over to IMDb (Internet Movie Database). Everyone who wants to find out more about movies, actors and movie industry could do the same – unless of course they live in China. As it turns out, the People’s Republic of China has put IMDb behind the Great Firewall of China. This way no one in China can access the movie review site.
The precise reason why IMDb has been banned has not been made public. According to some sources, a documentary entitled When The Dragon Swallowed The Sun may be the reason why IMDb was banned. “More than six years in the making, When The Dragon Swallowed The Sun shows an unprecedented inside perspective on the Tibetan community in exile, its young generation and their struggle to free their homeland Tibet,” says the description of the documentary.
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By being banned, movie review site IMDb joins the ranks of sites such as Facebook and Twitter, which are also inaccessible to Chinese Internauts.
In related news, you can get a Firefox add-on that will put an IMDb review link in the right click context menu. Simply select an actor’s name or a movie’s name – or any text for that matter – then right click the mouse button and select IMDb review. You will be directed to IMDb and a list of search results related to the text you selected. Detailed instructions on how to get this add-on are available here.
Those of you that have an iPhone can take advantage of an iPhone app, the IMDb iPhone app to be more precise. For absolutely no money whatsoever the app grants you access to more than 1.5 million movie and TV titles, 3.2 million celebrities, trailers, US Box Office results and more.
Whenever I want to find out who starred in a specific movie, or if a movie is worth watching, I fire up my Firefox browser and head over to IMDb (Internet Movie Database). Everyone who wants to find out more about movies, actors and movie industry could do the same – unless of course they live in China. As it turns out, the People’s Republic of China has put IMDb behind the Great Firewall of China. This way no one in China can access the movie review site.