Controversies
- The United Daily News published an editorial criticizing the film as "marred by colonial thoughts during the Japanese era" on September 25, 2008.
- At the 2008 Pusan Festival, a deputy director of Taiwan's Government Information Office was barred from attending the closing ceremony due to political pressure from the People's Republic of China. Information about the film was also pulled from the festival's website.
- On October 15, 2008, Wang Cho-Chiun (王卓鈞), the Director-General of Taiwan's National Police Agency, was asked about his thoughts after seeing Cape No. 7. He responded that in two scenes he felt the film degraded the image of Taiwan's police force, and behavior such as Rauma beating Aga certainly would not be allowed in real Taiwan society.
- During his visit to Taiwan in November 2008, Chen Yunlin, the Chairman of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), publicly praised this film after a private screening. However on November 28, 2008 during a regular ARATS meeting in Beijing, Chen reversed his view and stated that this film was "marred by the shadow of Japanization". He recommended the film be banned in the People's Republic of China. Chen's standpoints were later revoked by Yang Yi(楊毅), the spokesman of the Taiwan Affairs Office later on December 13, 2008. Yang said the PRC delayed the release of Cape No. 7 only due to "technical issues such as translation" and the release date will be December 26, 2008. The final release date was further delayed to February 14, 2009 and the version censored by the PRC authorities was only 100-minute long: certain Taiwanese Hokkien slang, foul words, and scenes such as Old Mao speaking Japanese were cut.
Read more about this topic: Cape No. 7