Hundreds of Chinese workers were kept in virtual slavery for years as part of a multimillion-pound pirate DVD industry uncovered in the UK.


It may have been the visit to the swingers' party that did it. Or perhaps it was the scene where Brüno drops in to see a medium and simulates oral and anal sex with a ghost.
Either way, the antics of
Sacha Baron Cohen's latest comic antihero – the prancing gay Austrian journalist Brüno – all appear to be too much for Ukraine. According to reports, Ukraine's culture and tourism ministry is set to ban the film Brüno, which was due for release in the post-Soviet country next week.
The ministry has so far not explained its decision. But it appears to have taken the view that several of the scenes – among them a mock gay parade, and one in which Brüno shows off his penis – were likely to offend conservative and religious opinion. Ukraine's Catholic west and orthodox east take a dim view of
gay rights, and hold highly traditional social views. And despite efforts by Ukraine's western-leaning political elite to integrate with Europe, there is little sign of a more liberal view taking hold.
"Ukrainian society is a conservative one. The topic is not discussed, but in reality public attitudes are exactly the same as in
Russia," one Ukrainian diplomat said last night. "The west of Ukraine, especially, is very conservative on family issues. They are devoted Catholics, and Greek Catholics."
In Russia, and much of eastern Europe, homophobia remains widespread. Last month, Moscow's mayor Yuri Luzhkov, who has denounced gay parades as "satanic", sent in riot police to break up a small demonstration of gay rights activists protesting during the Eurovision song contest.
Baron Cohen's last film – Borat, or Cultural Learnings of America to Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan – was also banned in Ukraine. Other post-Soviet countries, including Russia, similarly outlawed the film, unwilling to offend Kazakhstan's touchy leader, Nursultan Nazarbayev. Needless to say, Kazakhstan banned Borat, too.
Another factor is Ukraine's presidential election: the country's president, Viktor Yushchenko, is staging an uphill struggle for re-election in January. In 2004, he received the support of Ukraine's powerful Catholic church. His officials may calculate that the anti-Brüno factor could just revive his flagging appeal among elderly voters.
Yesterday, however, some sources in Ukraine's cinema industry suggested that the controversy may simply be an elaborate publicity stunt, dreamed up by distributors Sinergia to boost the film ahead of its release.
The Ukrainian website korrespondent.net, however, today reported the ban was genuine.
Since its release last Friday, the 18-certificate Brüno has gone to the top of the US box office, and earned £35m in the UK. Amid reports of queues of teenagers being turned away from cinemas, its makers are now preparing a second, more teen-friendly version, to be released in Britain on 24 July.
Universal Pictures has trimmed the original film by 1 minute and 50 seconds. And it has excised some of the more lurid scenes, including the one with the ghost.It's official: kung-fu pictures can be bad for your health. The latest casualty is the leading Hong Kong actor Tony Leung, who had his arm broken by a martial arts instructor while rehearsing his latest role. Production on the film – a kung-fu biopic by
Wong Kar-Wai – may now be delayed.
The Grand Master stars Leung as Ip Man, a venerable teacher best known for training the teenaged Bruce Lee. The film is due to begin shooting in September.
Leung was in training on Monday when the accident occurred. The actor was kicked by his instructor, breaking a bone in his left forearm, a spokesman for the director's production company, Jet Tone Films, told the Associated Press.
Leung has collaborated with Wong Kar-Wai on six previous movies: Days of Being Wild, Chungking Express, Ashes of Time, Happy Together, In the Mood for Love and 2046. More recently, he has starred in Ang Lee's controversial Lust, Caution and John Woo's action epic Red Cliff. The Grand Master will be Wong's first feature since his ill-starred American drama My Blueberry Nights, which opened to a raspberry of bad reviews
Hundreds of Chinese workers were kept in virtual slavery for years as part of a multimillion-pound pirate DVD industry uncovered in the UK.
The men and women, many of whom lived 11 to a room, were the labour behind an organised
crime syndicate that began on a market stall in Hackney, east London, and grew into a £5m illegal industry.
The syndicate produced thousands of DVDs in houses and a shop in east London before expanding into a large factory in Walthamstow, east London, which investigators said was the first rogue DVD plant in western Europe to be identified. Mass-production factories on this scale are usually found in the far east and Russia, police said.
The family that ran the cartel were convicted last week of conspiracy to launder the proceeds of film
piracy and conspiracy to produce pirate DVDs after a £1.5m police surveillance operation.
Detective Constable Evelyn Steeples, who was part of the team involved, said the case revealed the huge profits that could be made from organised crime. She said the manufacture of pirate DVDs, most of which are sold on street corners and in pubs across the UK, was not a victimless crime.
"Over the three years hundreds of Chinese people worked for them. They don't speak English, they live in poor communities, and they are extremely vulnerable," Steeples said. "The year before last there were three murders of DVD sellers. These are the invisible people, they pay around £20,000 to be brought over here, they are in debt bondage, they get abused, they get kidnapped off the street and they live in slave-like conditions."
Brothers Sami and Rafi Asghar Sheikh, 28 and 26, and their father, Khalid, 51, of north Chingford, will be sentenced this month along with Xin Li, 34, from east London, who was convicted of concealing the proceeds of crime.
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