 At
the beginning of February, media in China was buzzing about the
possibility of a film rating system being put into place sometime this
year. Although the story turned out to be incorrect, it still sparked
yet another round of debate over the feasibility of implementing a
rating system for mainland cinema.
In a blog post last week, film critic Wei Junzi discussed how Hong
Kong's film rating system came about.
Men Behind the Sun, was a notable
co-production that depicted the tragic biological experiments conducted
by the Japanese invaders on Chinese people. According to Hong Kong media
reports in 1988, the film censors vomited from disgust when they viewed
the film and in one swift action, Category III films were born in Hong
Kong.
Why was it only in 1988 that Hong Kong started having Category III
films? Going back to the beginning, in March 1987, the English-language
Asian Wall Street Journal disclosed that there was no legal foundation
for Hong Kong film censorship, a revelation that caused instant
controversy throughout the city. Creating a new film screening system,
regardless of what it would eventually become, had to be put on the
agenda immediately. Therefore the Hong Kong Executive and Legislative
Councils quickly established a task force to deliberate a new Film
Censorship Bill that would incorporate a motion picture rating system.
On November 10, 1988, the Film Censorship Ordinance went into effect,
and from that day forward, Hong Kong had a three-level film rating
system:
- Category I (All ages admitted)
- Category II (All ages admitted, but the film
had to carry the statement, Not suitable for children)
- Category III (Persons aged 18 and above).
Subsequently, Hong Kong's film screening became
substantially more permissive. Even though this led to the proliferation
of films wallowing in sex and violence, at the same time, Hong Kong
filmmakers obtained a good deal of creative freedom, and produced a
stream of excellent works that broke through thematic taboos.
In 1995, Hong Kong's film censors changed the
"three-level system" into a "four-level system." The main changes were
to indicate the degree of nudity, sex, violence, crude language, and
frightening content present, and divided the former Category II into:
- Category IIA (Not suitable for children)
- Category IIB (Not suitable for children or
youth).
It is suggested that the proposed 2 level system for mainland China
is
- Category I (All ages admitted)
- Category IIA (Not suitable for children)
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