The four-time Oscar-winning Bohemian Rhapsody came a little later for China, but the release has caused some discussion within the LGBTQ+ community. The movie shows the darker side of the late singer Freddie Mercury’s life, focusing mainly on his sexuality and how he expressed that. The movie was heavily edited to exclude any reference to his sexuality.

Although it doesn’t make the movie much shorter, the censored scenes include the scene where Freddie, discusses his sexuality with his fiancée Mary Austin, and the scene that introduces Jim Hutton, Mercury’s lover of seven years. In addition, a scene where Queen performs in women’s clothing has been excluded. All in all, that’s about three minutes of footage removed.

“We believe in building bridges and open dialogue and will continue to push for the breaking down of barriers until all people are heard equally across the world.”

Also, in the scene where Mercury reveals he has AIDS to his bandmates, the dialogue was muted and no subtitles were provided. For many, Freddie Mercury is an icon and people are going to want know  the whole story. Even some Chinese filmgoers refused to watch the altered version because they hoped to learn more about Freddie’s character.

But this isn’t the only movie that has been censored in this way. Rocketman, the brand-new biopic based on the life of Sir Elton John telling the tale of his childhood, life before his great successes and the ups and downs of being a star in the 70s. It also shows the relationship between Elton and his manager John Reid. A spokesperson for the movie’s Russian distributor told the TASS news agency that the film had “been modified to make it comply with Russian law.” Elton himself had put out a statement explaining that he rejected the decision for Rocketman to be censored and that ”We believe in building bridges and open dialogue and will continue to push for the breaking down of barriers until all people are heard equally across the world.”