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Monster Hunter Now Being Review Bombed Due To Racist Joke

Just when you thought 2020 couldn't get any more bizarre, Paul W.S. Anderson's video game adaptation Monster Hunter has caused an online firestorm based on a single line of dialogue that the writer/director is no doubt regretting. Less than 48 hours after debuting in Chinese theaters, the movie has seen all showtimes suspended and looks to have been banned altogether as a terrible joke made by one of the characters was interpreted by local audiences as a racist slur.

Monster Hunter

Just when you thought 2020 couldn’t get any more bizarre, Paul W.S. Anderson’s video game adaptation Monster Hunter has caused an online firestorm based on a single line of dialogue that the writer/director is no doubt regretting now. Less than 48 hours after debuting in Chinese theaters, the movie has seen all showtimes suspended and looks to have been banned altogether as a terrible joke made by one of the characters was interpreted by local audiences as a racist slur.

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Of course, the country has arguably the strictest censorship board on the planet, and the vast majority of American productions aren’t even considered for a release in China, and the ones that are tend to be heavily edited, which makes it even stranger that Monster Hunter managed to get all the way to the big screen before viewers labeled it as offensive.

Now, in retaliation, both the video game series and the feature-length spin on the source material are being review bombed online, while people from all over the world have waded into the furor debating whether or not the joke in question is actually racist or not, and you can check out some of the reactions below.

https://twitter.com/irong1027/status/1335464220083806209

https://twitter.com/talentedmrwulf/status/1335456216840097792

https://twitter.com/_slamongflobo/status/1335432099055226881

https://twitter.com/JollyIvo/status/1335339282219888641

Fans weren’t even particularly keen on Monster Hunter to begin with after the first trailer was roundly criticized when it initially arrived, but after losing out on the chance to earn money in the only country that’s seen the theatrical industry make any sort of resurgence over the last few months, Anderson’s latest stab at the video game genre is shaping up to be a box office bomb that will only be remembered for the offense and outrage it caused.