SHANGHAI: Big Brother Xu Wenqiang has returned to TV screens, with the same dark overcoat, fedora, and a cigarette dangling from his lips.

Nothing wrong with his trademark paraphernalia, except that his smoking has triggered a storm of protests.

"Almost all the scenes show the actors smoking. Xu (the hero) even smokes while fighting and flirting... there is no drama without smoke," wrote a viewer named "Wanglinwang" on the sina.com website.

"Almost all the actors, except the heroine, smoke. One of them smokes even when there is a dead man in his arms. I quit smoking many years ago, and the smell of tobacco makes me sick. But I am a fan of the TV series, and now I want to smoke again like Xu Wenqiang," wrote the blogger.

The Bund was originally made in Hong Kong in 1980, and launched the career of Hong Kong actor Chow Yun-fat. It tells the story of a young man who becomes a mafia don in the Shanghai of 1930s.

Chow's portrayal of The Bund hero Xu prompted many viewers in the 1980s to hold a cigarette with three fingers and narrow their eyes before breaking into a smile.

But times have changed and the public today is more aware of the harms of smoking, hence the flurry of protests.

The Think Tank Research Center for Health Development has submitted a formal complaint to the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), criticizing the new TV series for showing too many scenes of people smoking.

The hero's "extremely cool" way of smoking is being widely imitated by teenagers again.

Think Tank found that 36 percent of Chinese TV dramas made in the past two years showed actors smoking in an average of 30 scenes, with one appearing at an average interval of 12 minutes.

It suggested SARFT impose stricter regulations limiting or even prohibiting smoking in TV serials and films.

"The new hero smokes too much. It is too obvious, especially the shots of him lighting a cigarette. Our new hero is not far from being an addict," read one comment on sina.com.

"But he looks so cool smoking," Cao Liang, a woman in her early 20s, said. And many on the Internet agree with her.

"We didn't realize this would be a problem," Gao Xixi, director of the new series, told China Daily. "There is no specific regulation in China against smoking on TV."

Huang Xiaoming, the young actor who plays Xu in the new series, was not a smoker. But to give the character a more convincing personality, he forced himself to smoke a pack a day during the making of the TV series.

"During the final editing we deleted some smoking scenes," Gao said. "We have made more cuts now, deleting about 90 minutes altogether."

The new series went on air in March, and is being shown on TV channels nationwide.

(China Daily 07/18/2007 page1)