Advert depicting Tiananmen Square’s ‘Tank Man’ creates headaches for Leica Camera

Leica has landed itself in hot soup with a clever video depicting dark moments of war and political conflict through the decades, including the deadly 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, as seen through the lenses of photographers.

Leica Camera has sought to distance itself from a promotional video depicting photographers covering the deadly Tiananmen Square crackdown three decades ago, after it landed the German company in hot water in China.

The five-minute promotional video, “The Hunt”, depicts various dark moments of war and conflicts through the lenses of photojournalists. But its main plot follows a Western journalist inside a Beijing hotel in 1989 as he tries to go outside to document the shooting of student protesters by the Chinese army, but is confronted and chased by Chinese soldiers.