China screens two films "exposing the evil nature of aberrant religions"

BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific/August 28, 2002

Beijing -- Recently two films exposing the evil nature of aberrant religions have appeared on the screen in China: "The Flower Street" and "Abyss - the Essence of Cults". Through the movies, a popular form of entertainment, the broad masses can see the danger of aberrant religions and thereby take the initiative to guard against their effects.

"The Flower Street", an anti-cult feature film produced by the Inner Mongolia Film Studio and Sunmingqiang Film and TV Cultural Corporation in Beijing, depicts the wanton activities of the Lotus Flower religion in a certain place of North China during the 1940s. The founder of this religion, called the Immortal Lotus Lady, used "divine water" to treat diseases as a way to make money, thus committing the criminal acts of killing people and ruining their families. The film exposes the evil nature of this cult organization, which, in the name of treating diseases, controlled the minds of its innocent believers, jeopardized them, economically exploited them and finally killed them, with the result that many families were broken and a lot of people were dead.

"Abyss - the Essence of Cults" is a science education film shot by the Beijing Science Education Film Studio. Using a lot of dynamic materials, it exposes the true features of such cult organizations as "The People's Temple", "Branch Davidian", "The Order of the Solar Temple", and "Aum Shinrikyo [Aum Supreme Truth]", which killed people for the sake of their money. The film also contains shots of former "Falun Gong" addicts who relate their own experience to criticize "Falun Gong" for its extremely detrimental effects on people's minds and families and on society. In addition, the film reveals the antihuman, anti-science and antisocial nature of this cult on the basis of the latest research results in sociology and natural science.

This morning the China Anti-Cult Association and the Beijing- based Sunmingqiang Film and TV Cultural Corporation presented 60 copies of "The Flower Street" to Yanan and other places in the western region.