The way Chinese movies are vetted for public screening bears a great deal of resemblance to the Hays Code, enforced in the United States from 1930 until 1968. It was a set of guidelines designed to promote moral behavior. The Hays "don'ts" and "be carefuls" tend to overlap to an eye-popping extent with what we have in today's China. Of course there are areas of divergence: There is less rigidity on the Chinese screen for intimacy if it involves a legally married couple or a couple in love, and more constraints for portraying dark characters who do not go through redemption.

The 2001 comedy Shaolin Soccer was banned presumably for fear of offending the sensibilities of the pious. "How can you portray us as fun-loving soccer players instead of meditating and chanting Buddhists?" That seems to be the preemptive question that derailed this hilarious comedy. That sets me thinking about a US equivalent: What would Will H. Hays have said to a movie titled "Mormon Football" or "Amish Baseball"?

By the way, a movie denied a permit for screening does not mean it will never see the light of day. It just means the investors cannot make a penny out of it as the movie will usually be pirated and watched by more people than it would otherwise attract to the cinema.

Therein lies the paradox of censorship, because it calls attention to the kind of content the censors do not want the public to see. It often serves as the most effective publicity for both the movies and the questionable content.

I can understand the rationale behind the policy. It is intended to protect those who are vulnerable to certain elements in films. The complication is, these elements tend to evolve with the years, such as we see with the portrayal of love scenes, and have a different impact on different audience groups. As a general rule, one's tolerance for the dark side of humanity - I mean the movie depiction of it - grows with age.

The world is fraught with imperfections. If we show the world only as it should be, all we can have is fairy tales, and maybe not the Brothers Grimm versions of them since they tend to be dark and scary. A child psychologist will tell us that we had better hide some truths from people of certain ages. For example, it would be cruel to tell a 3-year-old that there is no Santa Claus. But to convince a 20-year-old that there is a Santa Claus would be ludicrous.