A grisly cartoon that marks the upcoming Year of the Rabbit by portraying a bunny revolt against brutal tiger overlords has proven an online hit, with its thinly veiled stab at China's communist rulers.
The video, reminiscent of both South Park and the gruesome 'Happy Tree Friends', by animator Wang Bo, sees persecuted rabbits overthrow the ruling tigers. It went viral on video-sharing sites in recent days thanks to its gruesome depiction of a number of recent scandals.
It was unavailable on websites in China Thursday, apparently deleted by skittish government censors.
Wang's cartoon begins with baby rabbits who die horribly from drinking "Sanlu" milk. Sanlu is the now-defunct Chinese dairy giant that was at the centre of a huge scandal in 2008 over tainted milk.
The milk was blamed for killing six infants and making another 300,000 ill.
In the video, rabbit parents are then savagely beaten by tiger thugs when they complain, or are cruelly run over by cars and killed - in a clear reference to two notorious recent cases.
In one, the son of a police official in northern China stood trial this week accused of striking and killing a pedestrian while driving drunk. He reportedly tried to escape arrest by invoking his father's name.
In another, a village chief was last month crushed by a truck. Villagers allege he was killed by local officials to silence his complaints about a land seizure by authorities.
The bunnies in the video are a reference to the Chinese Year of the Rabbit, which begins on February 3, while 2010 was the Year of the Tiger.
After an orgy of violence as the bunnies rise up, the video ends with a character saying: "It will really be an interesting year."
China operates a huge system of online censorship that deletes content considered a threat to the primacy of the ruling Communist Party.
Fearful of social unrest China's leaders are scrambling to contain public anger over a range of hot-button issues including official abuses and rising costs of food and housing.
This week, Premier Wen Jiabao paid an unprecedented visit to an office in Beijing where members of the public can petition the government over their grievances.
Wen pledged the government would go all-out to address public concerns, but Human Rights Watch dismissed his appearance as a political charade.
China annually sees tens of thousands of sometimes violent protests by ordinary citizens, often related to illegal land seizures, evictions and home demolitions by officials and businesses seeking to redevelop land.
A scene in the online video depicts tigers knocking over rabbits' homes with bulldozers.
