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`Da Vinci Code' sparks worldwide ire

Christian groups plan to block screenings on the opening night at the Cannes festival

— Photo: AP

A JOURNEY TO REMEMBER: (From right) Actors Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou, director Ron Howard and Eurostar chairman Guillaume Pepy outside the Eurostar train named `The Da Vinci Code' at the Waterloo Station in London on Tuesday.

CANNES (France): Christian groups as far away as South Korea, Thailand and The Philippines protested against the movie `The Da Vinci Code' before its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday, planning boycotts, a hunger strike and attempts to block or shorten screenings.

Playing on the opening night at the 59th Cannes festival caps a huge marketing blitz for Ron Howard's adaptation of Dan Brown's bestseller. The movie is not competing for prizes at the glitzy two-week festival in southern France, which runs through May 28.

World record

Tom Hanks and other stars of the movie arrived in Cannes from London on Tuesday aboard a train named The Da Vinci Code, setting a world record for the longest non-stop international train journey.

The movie based on the book suggests that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, had children and has heirs alive today. This has outraged many Christians.

In South Korea, which has 13 million Protestants and 4.6 million Roman Catholics, a court ruled that a Christian group's request for an injunction to block screenings lacked merit.

``As it is clear that the novel and movie are all fiction ... there is no probability that the movie can make viewers mistakenly believe the contents of the movie are facts,'' chief judge Song Jin-hyun said in his ruling.

The Christian Council of Korea, an umbrella group of 63 South Korean Protestant denominations, said it respected the ruling but would lead a boycott of the movie that, it said, defiled the sanctity of Jesus Christ and distorted facts.

In Thailand, Christian groups demanded that government censors cut the film's final 15 minutes, fix subtitles that are supposedly disrespectful to Jesus and screen messages before and after the movie saying the content is fictional.

``If they are going to screen this, we asked that they cut out the conclusion of the movie that Jesus still has heirs alive today,'' said spokesman Manoch Jangmook of the Evangelical Fellowship of Thailand.

The censor board has not yet replied to the request. The movie is scheduled in Thai theatres from Thursday.

"No attack on church"

Philippine censors approved an adult rating for the movie but stopped short of rating it ``X'' because ``it does not constitute a clear, express or direct attack on the Catholic church or religion'' and does not libel or defame any person.

The movie review panel's chairperson, Marissa Laguardia, told The Associated Press that the movie would be a ``test of faith'' for many people in the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines.

``Those groups, like the conservatives who want it banned, maybe they can tell their friends, discourage their friends from watching it,'' she said.The National Council of Churches in Singapore, which also had requested a ban, planned lectures to refute aspects of the film and the book on which it is based. The censorship board gave the movie a NC16 rating, barring viewers under 16, arguing that ``only a mature audience will be able to discern and differentiate between fact and fiction.'' — AP

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