A LEADING film director has been accused of causing widespread damage to the environment in the pristine wilderness of Shangri-La while filming the most expensive movie shot in China.

Chen Kaige has been criticised for failing to clean up after filming The Promise, a £25 million fantasy epic, in the Himalayan foothills of Yunnan province, southwestern China.

According to Qiu Baoxing, the Vice-Minister for Construction, the crew had littered the banks of remote Bigu Lake with film set detritus as well as destroying swaths of wild azaleas. The crew left behind the skeleton of a reinforced concrete structure on the shore and 100 wooden posts driven into the lake bed, he said.

Chen Hong, the producer of the film and Mr Chen’s wife, said the materials were left to be auctioned to pay for the clean-up and that the film company had also provided funds. Officials said that they had not received any money.

Mr Chen has not been fined but the ministry has announced that permission would have to be obtained in future before filming at scenic spots was allowed.

One local official told The Times, however, that the uproar had been overdone. The rubbish could not be removed sooner because it was covered in snow.

With the arrival of spring, workers have cleared the site and the azaleas are expected to recover.

Deng Hengyuan, vice-director of the local Communist Party propaganda office, said: “The environment at Shangri-La is very good and nature here is very able to restore itself. The spot is likely to be as good as new within a year.”

Shangri-La, a remote and mountainous spot, populated mainly by ethnic Tibetans, was virtually unknown until 2002 when the old town of Zhongdian won its new and alluring name. Since then its face and its fate have been transformed.

The name change came after years of rivalry among Yunnan counties, each arguing that its soaring peaks, crystal lakes and rivers and ancient monasteries were the paradise immortalised in James Hilton’s 1933 novel Lost Horizon.

The British author never visited China but the Chinese have always yearned to identify the real Shangri-La within its borders.