Cigarette smoking still prevalent on big and small screens

Footage of cigarette smoking in Chinese films and TV series is still prevalent, the China Association on Tobacco Control revealed on Wednesday.

Of the 30 most popular Chinese films shown in China last year, 21 contained footage of smoking, according to monitoring conducted by the association, which was released on Wednesday.

The 21 films contain a total of 435 footages of smoking, and the average amount of amount of smoking in each film is 121 seconds, an 83 percent rise compared to the results of a similar study by the association last year.

Gone With The Bullets, a film directed by actor Jiang Wen, had the most smoking, the monitoring shows. It was found to have 45 smoking footages, and smoking appears in the film on average every 3.1 minutes according to the association.

Tobacco prevalence also appears in TV series, the monitoring shows, with 70% of the 30 most popular TV series broadcast last year containing smoking.

Some TV series that highlight achievements of former Chinese revolutionary leaders, including Chairman Mao Zedong, contain the most smoking,

"We urge film and TV series directors to refrain from including smoking footage", Xu Guihua, deputy director of the China Association on Tobacco Control, said.

Such footagecan set bad examples for young people and may cause them to take up smoking, and they should be eliminated from films and TV series, she said.