Chinese Woman Sues Cinema Over Commercials

(CANVAS STAFF REPORTS) - A Chinese woman is claiming that going to the cinema is a waste of time and she wants her money back. Her conviction is so strong that she's suing over it.

The Telegraph reported that Chen Xiaomei believes the Polybona International Cinema in Xian and film distributors Huayi Brothers Media Corp. should have warned her about the long advertisements before the movie "Aftershock," a Chinese movie an earthquake.

Xiaomei, a lawyer, claims that they wasted her time and violated her freedom of choice. She wants the companies to refund her 35-yuan ($5.16) ticket, pay another her 35-yuan ($5.16) in compensation and one yuan (14 cents) for emotional damages. She also wants a written apology.

A court has accepted the case.

Xiaomei wants the cinema to publish the times of the advertisements on its website, in the lobby or on its customer hotline and thinks that the distributor should limit commercials to less than five minutes, not the 20 minutes that she sat through.

She isn't the only one complaining about the length of advertisements before films. Television commercials making their way onto the big screen has spurred a similar complaint against the film industry over the past few years.

A group called The Captive Motion Pictures Audience of America started a campaign to Say NO to TV commercials before feature films. The website Ecosalon reported that a petition was circulated in 2009.

The CMPAA wrote an open letter to Regal Cinemas and other theater owners to keep these commercials on television and not in the theaters.

The group suggested to theaters that such commercial placement would lead to a consumer backlash and stated that it is "well past the line of 'ad-creep.'"