Hong Kong - movie poster woman smoking - NOT ALLOWED..

June 14, 2009 - An anti-smoking group James Middleton, chairman of the anti-tobacco committee in Hong Kong for campaign group Clear the Air, said the poster for a film about Coco Chanel breaks laws banning any mention of smoking or cigarettes in advertising. Middleton: "It is a direct breach of the law."

The film "Coco Before Chanel," features the French fashion legend Audrey Tautou smoking a cigarette. In the poster, Tautou poses in silk pajamas with Chanel's trademark cigarette dangling from her fingers, has appeared across the city. No one from the company responsible for promoting the movie in Hong Kong, Lark Films Distribution, was immediately available for comment.Earlier this year, the company that runs advertising on trains and buses in Paris pulled a similar poster over fears it could be prosecuted.

An advert for the film that appeared Friday in the South China Morning Post had the cigarette airbrushed out. Hong Kong's Health Department was also not immediately available to answer questions from AFP, but a spokesman told the South China Morning Post it was looking into the case.

Hong Kong anti-smoking laws ban any mention of smoking or cigarettes in advertising. I (Elmer W. Cagap) wonder if cigarette companies have been overtly promoting their products by coordinating with filmmakers to insert smoking scenes in the movie.

Tobacco Use in Hong Kong.

References: Chanel Smoking Poster More Offensive Than Street Smokers, posted by Elmer W. Cagape, hongkong-life.blogspot.com, 6/14/2009; Film Ad Breaks Hong Kong Smoking Laws, Source AFP - medindia.net, 6/13/2009.

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