15 Mar – The nine-dash line has done it again, as Vietnam recently announced that it has banned the Tom Holland action-adventure film, "Uncharted" due to a scene featuring the map that shows China's territorial claims on South China Sea. Vi Kien Thanh, the head of the Department of Cinema in the country revealed the news in a statement, saying, "The film is banned from distribution after we watched it and found it contained an illegal image of the infamous nine-dash line." This is not the first time that the country has blocked an international project due to the said issue.
In 2019, it banned DreamWorks' "Abominable" for the same reason, while in 2021, the country asked Netflix to drop several episodes of the Australian series, "Pine Gap" because of it. The nine-dash line has been used by China to claim - albeit illegally - huge swathes of the South China Sea, including areas rich in natural resources that Vietnam regards as its own territory. Ironically, if the film - or any other Hollywood films - chooses a version of the map preferred by Southeast Asian countries that are bumping heads with China, it will definitely receive a backlash from the latter, which is currently one of the biggest film markets in the world. It is noted that "Unchartered" has recently opened in China.