MOVIES - Aug. 15, 1988

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, a leading Chinese newspaper criticized government officials Sunday for banning “Superman” and at least four Chinese films that passed the censors and opened to packed movie houses. The China Youth News called for measures to prevent such “lawlessness” in future--a rare instance of Chinese media criticizing government. The officials had showings of “Superman” halted in early 1986 because they said the movie “turned the world upside down” and “reversed the flow of time,” according to the report, which added the officials did not want China’s “youth to be inculcated with the film’s impossible idealism,” the report said.