A scene of the "Gone With The Bullets"
China's New Year blockbuster "Gone With The Bullets" was given an award of shame for excessive smoking as part of the country's latest anti-tobacco campaign.
The Chinese Association on Tobacco Control announced the "Dirty Ashtray Award" as it disclosed the results for an annual smoking scene review of films and television series.
The film by director Jiang Wen has 45 smoking scenes, the highest of all other films, showing one every 3.1 minutes. It contended with 30 of the most popular films over the past year, said Xu Guihua, deputy director of the association. Nine films and television series were given "No Smoking Scene Awards".
The association has been monitoring smoking scenes in popular films and television series in China since 2007 to encourage celebrities to take more social responsibilities not to expose too many smoking scenes in their works to prevent the minors from mimicking.
As the world's largest tobacco maker and consumer, China has more than 300 million smokers, almost the size of the U.S. population, and another 740 million people are exposed to second-hand smoke each year.
According to official data, over one million Chinese people die from smoking-related diseases annually.
The country is adopting its strictest measures in the latest tobacco-control efforts.
Apart from shame awards, China's top legislature in April adopted an amendment to the Advertisement Law, banning tobacco advertising on mass media, in public places, public vehicles and outdoors.
The consumption tax on cigarettes at the wholesale level was raised on May 10, a move expected to cut cigarette consumption by four to five percent and add 100 billion yuan to annual tax revenue.
