Censorship

Stephen Cremin asianfilmlibrary
Tue Sep 4 09:07:39 EDT 2001


At the beginning of the year, around the time of the BATTLE ROYALE
controversy, there was some talk about the Japanese government debating
censorship around October and possible changing the law.  Has there been any
more news about this.  Anyone got any facts.  Last Thursday in Korea, the
Constitutional Court ruled that the Korean Media Ratings Board's practise of
refusing to give a film a certificate amounted to "unconstitutional
censorship by an administrative agency".  In the past films like Jang
Sun-woo's LIES were initially rejected forcing the distributors to
"voluntarily" recut the film for resubmission three months later.  I think
they operate a three strikes and you're out policy.  A film studies
professor has suggested that now only criminal and youth protection laws
would apply to regulatory decisions although there will need to be some
changes to the Motion Picture Industry Promotion Act.  The suit was brought
by the producer and distributor of the 1998 film YELLOW FLOWER, starring Suh
Jung from THE ISLE, which screened at Pusan IFF (1998) and Goteborg FF
(2000).  Director Lee Ji-sang has since directed two more films, A SUDDEN
CRASH OF THUNDER (1999) and A STORY ABOUT HER (2000), neither of which have
had distribution in Korea.  I don't know whether either have been submitted
to the Ratings Board, but THUNDER wouldn't have a snowball's chance in a
Tokyo summer.

Stephen




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