Vietnam pulls 'Abominable' from screens over map featuring disputed territory with China

The DreamWorks animated movie Abominable has been pulled from cinemas in Vietnam because it features a scene with a map in which disputed territory with China is shown.

The movie, directed by Jill Culton and featuring the voices of Chloe Bennet, Eddie Izzard and Sarah Paulson, follows three teenagers as they journey across China and into the Himalayas to reunite a yeti called Everest with his family.

But during one scene, a map is produced which features the 'nine-dash line', also known as the 'Great Wall of Sand', imposed on a resource-rich section of the South China Sea by the Chinese authorities.

Read more: New Frozen 2 trailer

China's claim over the area has been long disputed, and in July tensions worsened, resulting in a stand-off between China and Vietnam after China sent a ship into the contested waters to began conducting energy surveys.

It was followed by protests outside the Chinese embassy in Hanoi that were broken up by police, according to the South China Morning Post.

Though the film has been out in Vietnam since October 4, it appears to have only recently come to the attention of the Vietnamese government, after images of the scene started being shared on social media.

“We will revoke [the film’s licence],” Ta Quang Dong, deputy minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, told the Thanh Nien newspaper.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the inclusion of this version of the map is unlikely to have been a mistake.

Though it is ostensibly a movie made by US studio DreamWorks Animation, it's also a co-production with Pearl Studio, based in Shanghai and in part funded by the Chinese government.

DreamWorks is yet to comment on the matter.