Chinese official disciplined for skipping work to see 'Avengers: Endgame'

Two characters in an American movie. Photo:AP

In late April, when a party discipline inspection team visited a customer service center of Heihe Thermal Power Group in Heilongjiang Province, northeast China, only two employees were working. The rest, including director Zhang Dexin, had left work to watch the blockbuster movie "Avengers: Endgame."

On its WeChat social media account, the Heihe City Party Discipline Inspection Commission said that after receiving a report, they made a surprise inspection of the center on April 26.

"All the staff at the Heihe Thermal Power Group's customer service center skipped work to watch movies, causing a bad influence. This shows that the company does not regularly supervise and does not provide adequate ideological and political education to party members," the committee said.

Director Zhang was reprimanded and transferred. The company's CEO, Han Dong, was forced to self-criticize at a board meeting. After the incident, many other government agencies in the city, such as the Heihe Environmental Protection Bureau, held study sessions to promote party discipline.

Both the procuratorate and the Heihe CPPCC said on WeChat that they had held meetings to discuss the "bad example" of Heihe Thermal Power Group and were determined to improve discipline and prevent similar cases from happening in the future.

Maoyan Entertainment, China's largest movie ticketing app, said on May 11 that the movie "Avengers: Endgame" has grossed 4.03 billion yuan (519 million USD) in China since its release on April 24.