The Philippines is rolling out Hollywood action flicks over the South China Sea map

The Philippines has pulled the plug on all domestic screenings of a Hollywood film called Uncharted over a scene showing a disputed map of the South China Sea, the foreign ministry said on Wednesday.

The move comes shortly after Vietnam, another South China Sea plaintiff, also banned the Sony Pictures action film starring Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg. It was released in the Philippines on February 23.

A two-second frame in the film contains an image of the so-called nine-dash line, which marks China’s claims in the South China Sea, a strategic waterway. The scene “runs counter to the national interest,” the State Department said in a statement.

The U-shaped line is a feature used on Chinese maps to illustrate its sea territory in a region where Taiwan, Vietnam, Brunei, and Malaysia, the Philippines all have competing claims.

A 2016 ruling by an arbitration tribunal in The Hague invalidated China’s claims to nearly the entire waterway, through which about $3 trillion in shipping trade flows annually. Beijing did not participate in the court case and does not recognize the verdict.

Sony’s Columbia Pictures Industries Inc. was ordered to stop showing the film and has complied, the State Department said. Sony Pictures did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

In 2019, the Philippine Ministry of Foreign Affairs ordered DreamWorks to halt theatrical showings of the animated film “Abominable” after a scene featured the same Chinese nine-dash line.