How to review Rambo, by the Burmese junta

Newspaper and magazine publishers in Burma are being instructed to carry an article written by a regime official lambasting the latest Rambo film, which depicts a rescue mission undertaken into Burma by Rambo, played once again by Sylvester Stallone (pictured). The article describes the character of Rambo as a terrorist and a US government 'puppet'. It goes on: "He's a man who doesn't smile. He is an aggressive, hot-blooded man who seems to be mentally sick. He's obviously crazy. It's a ridiculous movie."

Publishers of Rangoon's popular weekly magazine The Voice confirmed they had been ordered by the Burma regime's censorship department - the Press Scrutiny and Registration Board - to carry the article.

In the film, made nearly 20 years after Rambo III, the ferocious Vietnam vet is living in self-imposed exile in Thailand. He comes out of retirement to rescue a group of Christian missionaries captured by Burmese government forces in a border region of Burma. The Burmese soldiers are depicted as brutal sadists, and at cinemas in Thailand Burmese exile audiences cheer as Rambo kills them all off virtually single-handed. Now 61, Stallone keeps his shirt on throughout.

The film is banned in Burma and video shops have been warned they face severe penalties if they are caught selling it. Yet local markets on the Burmese-Thai border are doing a roaring trade in pirated copies costing the equivalent of less than two pounds sterling.