EXCLUSIVE: Chinese distributors refuse to release Angel Studio’s new film ‘Sight’ over references to Mao’s Cultural Revolution

"This film is resonating with the Chinese, but the Chinese distributors tell us that they can’t touch any film addressing the cultural revolution," Geesey said.

The movie, Sight, follows the true story of Dr. Ming Wang, who fled Communist China to go on to become a pioneering eye surgeon in America. Starring Greg Kinnear and Terry Chen, the film recounts Wang’s formative years growing up during the Cultural Revolution in China, and going to America after the end of the revolution to study medicine. The movie centers around Wang’s attempts to restore the vision of a young orphan girl.

Sight will be released in theaters on Friday, just in time for Memorial Day Weekend which is traditionally a big weekend for moviegoers.

Dr. Wang graduated magna cum laude from Harvard and MIT with a Doctorate of Medicine and graduated from the University of Maryland with a PhD in laser physics. Wang also founded the Wang Foundation for Sight Restoration, a non-profit charity that helps perform sight restoration surgeries around the globe free of charge.

Wang was one of the first eye surgeons in the US to perform LASIK, laser eye surgery, and ZEISS SMILE, small incision lenticular extraction, and continues to be a driving force in progress in the field of eye surgery.

China’s Cultural Revolution led to the deaths of an estimated 500,000 to 2 million people. Chairman Mao’s Red Guard killed people like traditionalists, teachers, intellectuals, and those who spoke out against the government.

The country appears eager to forget the time marked by death and famine. China’s online censors have reportedly deleted millions of posts containing "harmful" discussions of the past. Textbooks in China reportedly give just a few paragraphs outlining the Cultural Revolution. Current Chinese leader Xi Jinping warned the Communist Party in 2021 that "historical nihilism" was an existential threat to the nation.