Buddhists slam ‘blasphemous’ fairy tale remake

A remake of a Chinese classic fairy tale The Legend of the White Snake has been removed from video websites after hundreds of thousands of Buddhism believers took to the internet to protest its defamation of Buddhist culture.

Chinese streaming giant iQiyi, which remade the drama, told the Global Times on Tuesday that the drama was approved for broadcast. Due to changes in the content, the platform decided on Monday to temporarily remove the drama.

The Legend of the White Snake is one of the four Chinese classic folk tales. It tells of a love story between a young man and a white snake spirit. After overcoming the obstruction of a Buddhist monk who tries to capture the snake spirit, the tale ends on a happy note.

The remake enraged Buddhism believers as the drama showed the monk Fa Hai fall in love with a green snake spirit. They accused it of blasphemy to Buddhist doctrine and ritual.

“In the show, the monk kisses and hugs the snake spirit. That’s against Buddhist culture,” said one of the participants.

Buddhism believers expressed strong opposition to the fairy tale since it was first broadcast on July 9. They called for a vote and a protest and demanded that IQiyi make a public apology. Over 120,000 participated in the vote.

However, some netizens said the Buddhism believers are overly sensitive. “It is just an artistic work. In reality, some Buddhists have wives. Why do you have two standards?” asked one Weibo user.

As of Friday, the legend has been broadcast over 1 billion times and the topic hashtag “With the drama” on Sina Weibo had received 4.57 million comments.