Chinese Steam Users Target Monster Hunter Game Over Movie Joke


What kind of knees are these?

Update: Valve has swooped in and marked the reviews for the past three days as off topic. As a result of this decision those reviews will no longer contribute to the game’s score and will not show up unless users specifically enable them.

A related story is the news that the Monster Hunter film has been pulled from Chinese theaters one day after release due to backlash on social media. Some are questioning how the joke got past China’s strict cultural censors in the first place.

Original: The Monster Hunter movie is already out in China and it is causing quite a ruckus among movie goers. At some point in the film characters are riding through the desert one of the characters says “look at my knees. What kind of knees are these? Chinese.”

The movie clip:

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The joke has not been received well by Chinese viewers who have taken to Steam to vent their frustration against Capcom personally for some reason. Their target of choice is Monster Hunter: Worlds. Over 1,000 negative reviews have already been posted today with some becoming inflammatory and incredibly xenophobic toward Japanese people and Americans. Many of the comments have been making reference to the murder of George Floyd by working the “what kind of knees are these” comment in.

The review bomb has in turn prompted a positive review bomb with people posting what is commonly referred to as an anti-China copypasta. The contents of the message are in English and Chinese and reference historic events that the Chinese government has routinely censored with the goal being to make the page unviewable by Chinese users. It doesn’t actually work.

We expect Valve to crack down on the off-topic reviews by flagging the day’s reviews and removing them from the game’s displayed score. So if you really want to write a review for Monster Hunter: Worlds, consider waiting a few days.

The Monster Hunter movie was directed by Paul W.S. Anderson as part of his continued efforts to keep wife Milla Jovavich employed in Hollywood. The film releases in the United States on December 25.