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Updated Wednesday, January 14, 2009 3:07 pm TWN, By MIN LEE, AP

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'Cape No. 7' gets China release date

HONG KONG -- A hit Taiwanese romance that highlights the island's 50-year colonial rule under Japan has been given a Valentine's Day release in mainland China, a film company official said Wednesday.

The release of "Cape No. 7" had been in doubt amid earlier news reports that Chinese officials worry it may be offensive to many on the mainland.

But China's state-run China Film Group has decided to release the movie "Cape No. 7" in the mainland on Feb. 14, Cecille Huang, a marketing official at Taiwan's ARS Film Production, told The Associated Press.

It wasn't immediately clear if Chinese censors demanded that filmmakers edit the movie.

Calls to China Film Group spokesman Weng Li went unanswered. Huang said she had no other details about the release.

The island's most successful movie in years, "Cape No. 7" is about a failed Taiwanese rock musician who returns to his small coastal hometown and is forced to play in a hastily assembled amateur band that will open for a Japanese pop star. He falls in love with the Japanese publicist overseeing the show.

The movie is also interspersed with a voice-over that reads from love letters written by a Japanese man to his Taiwanese love interest just after the island's colonial era ended. Japan ruled Taiwan from 1895 to 1945.

Attitudes toward Japan differ in China and Taiwan, which split amid civil war in 1949.

Many elderly Taiwanese speak fluent Japanese and are nostalgic toward Japanese culture, while many mainlanders are still upset about atrocities the Japanese army committed in China during the World War II.

Relations between China and Taiwan have warmed under Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou.

The two sides agreed last November to begin direct air and shipping services across the Taiwan Strait, ending a nearly six-decade ban on regular links. Regular direct flights resumed Dec. 15.

In a radio interview in December, Ma urged China to screen "Cape No. 7," saying it would help Chinese viewers understand their Taiwanese neighbors better.

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