Extreme violence in the Action movies.   How the Censor Board certifying these movies?

By

S Prabhakar

Often, I wonder do we need the Censor Board at all.  It does not look so after watching extremely violent and repulsive movies like Animal, Killer, Marco and many more such movies

If you have not seen the Malayalam movie Marco which was released PAN India (and turned out to be top grosser Malayalam movie), just imagine these gory scenes that forced me to think  `is the Censor Board really required’ and are they blindfolded and certify and pass such extremely violent movies in the name of action movies for public viewing even with `A’ certificate.

 

·    Throwing a person in an acid tub and panning a camera in to see how the body melts

 

·   First the villain cuts the hands and legs of hero friends with a wood-cutting machine

 

·       Then the hero does the same to a large number of goons with blood gushing out of the body and drenching the hero with blood all over the body

 

·       Stabbing in mouth

 

·       Smashing the heads of a dozen with a hammer

 

·       Indiscreetly chopping the limbs of goons by hero and beheading many and their heads rolling on the floor like football.

 

·       Firing indiscreetly at hundreds of people with a Gatling Gun, which has become mandatory for every hero in every language from Telugu to Bhojpuri after the success of KGF.

 

·       Inserting a sharp rod from the shoulder to the abdomen of a women

 

·       Hero piercing through the body and pulling out the heart and throwing on the floor

 

·       Hero pulling out intestines

 

·       Putting hands in the mouth and tearing off both cheeks of a lady

 

·       Smashing the head of a woman against the wall till death.

 

·       Smashing the head of a child with a gas cylinder by repeatedly hitting

 

·       Hanging a girl to death by a rope

 

·       Throwing a child from the first floor to death

 

·       Worst of all hitting and pushing on the tummy of a pregnant lady in labour pains pulling out the baby and carrying the newborn baby in a blood-soaked cloth and keeping it near an acid tub

While the non-stop over 20 minutes massacre goes on there are displays on the screen that crime against women is punishable and crime against children is punishable.  Our Censor Board members wash off their duties by prescribing such meaningless displays of notices/disclaimers on the screen

Even for a big-time action movie buff like me for close to six decades, this movie has had a stomach-churning effect and repulsive and I strongly feel that all the members of the Censor Board who have cleared and certified this movie (probably the original movie was cleared by Censor Board, Thiruvananthapuram) should be sacked for dereliction of their duties. Most of the violent scenes should have been chopped off mercilessly like the hero and villains did in the movie.

Does action mean extreme violence?

Absolutely not, but that is what our young and more specially ageing heroes in all Indian language movies think.   This has been proved beyond any doubt by the longest-standing action hero, Jackie Chan, who holds Guinness World records for stanging highest number of action scenes in movie history.  In over 100 breathtaking action movies Chan has starred they have not shown even a drop of blood in any movie.     In one of his interviews, Chan clarified that he will never show blood oozing out from any character in his movies, as he owes a responsibility not to promote violence but pure martial arts.    No living Indian actor can claim that he is a patch on Jackie Chan as far as daredevil action scenes are concerned done by Jakie without the help of stunt double.    Another iconic and most enduring and long-standing action movie series is James Bond movies from 1960 till date.  For over 6 decades James Bond movies set the standards for action movies which are copied all over the world.   Mega budgets are pumped in Bond movies to stage never seen before action scenes, there are a lot of chase sequences, gun fights hand to hand combats and a lot of bombing too is shown but none of those scenes are violent.

A well-choreographed action scenes well executed by able-bodied and trained actors adds to the thrill value of the movie.    There is no denying that Bruce Lee has single-handedly changed the face of action movies in the early 70s and popularised martial arts world over and inspired many generations of youngsters to take to bodybuilding and learn Martial arts for self-defence.   Mind you none of his movies, which were nothing but pure action movies, had violent scenes.   Even after more than half a century of his death he still remains a cult and legendary figure.   

Then why do Indian heroes (especially the ageing ones) require so much blood and gory, dismembering of limbs to project them as super action heroes?   Simply because the ageing Indian stars in all languages like Sharukh, Salman, Chiranjeevi, Nagarjuna, Kamal, Rajni, and Mamooty cannot lift their leg above knee level, cannot move their hands freely and they just wave their hands and leave the rest to the stunt doubles to fly all over the place.   But their desire to project themselves as macho action heroes has not died with age and they are misguided to think that by using explosive explicit and then keep hacking and beheading dozens of goons in each action scene and over hundreds in the entire movie with blood-spilling all over and they playing football with severed heads is lapped up by their stupid fans as action.   With the easily manageable Censor Board members who give a Nelson’s eye and clearing all such movies with extreme violence that too with a `U/A’  certificate things are becoming bad to worse.   Censor Board playts it safe by issuing a `U/A’ certificate which means  unrestricted but with a parental discretion advisory for children under 12 years.   So they can turn around and argue if parents are fine with their children watching such movies with or without them, who are we not to allow them to watch such movies.  

 

The history of action scenes in India:

Action scenes have been an integral part of Indian cinema from time immemorial.  The triumph of good over evil is rooted in our mythology and history and our producers have owned it like anything.  Whether it is a mythological movie, historical movie, social movie and of course action movie, action scenes are a must and we start believing that the macho image of a hero (in some movies even heroin) can not be elevated without action scenes.   Surprisingly, the first daredevil action star of Indian cinema was not a male but a female – the fearless Nadia (Mary Ann Evans – The Australian-India stunt woman and actor).   She did her own stunts without cables and without doubles, as long back as 1935.   After that every language has its own he-man, in Hindi Dara Singh and Dharmendra, in Telugu Krishna and NTR, in Tamil MGR and Jaishankar and so on.   Not only the stars who were branded as action stars but all other actors too tried their hand (legs too) in action scenes. 

Till the late 1960s, the action scenes were restricted to fist blows, and sword fights and the 1970s brought gun battles influenced by Hollywood westerns.   It was more of `dishum dishum’ background music and less violent and hardly any blood was shown.   With Daku / Dacoit film on the rise in the late 1960s to mid-1970s for the first time the Censor Board has swung into action creating a hurdle for clearance of action movies without major cuts.  Many scenes of Hindi movies like Sholay and Quarbani were chopped off and the producers had to fight a long battle with the Censor Board to get their movies cleared and ultimately compromise to avoid `A’ (only for adults) Certificate.  Sippy has to reshoot and change the climax scenes from crushing Gabbar by Thakur with spikes on his boots to leaving it to the Police.   That violent scene looks like elmentary before what we are seeing these days.      The romantic heroes and those who did not fit the bill in action movies like Raj Kapoor, Shammi Kapoor, Dev Anand, Manoj Kumar, Rishi Kapoor, Amol Palekar, Sharukh and Amir in Hindi, ANR, Shoban Babu and Chandra Mohan in Telugu, Prem Nazir in Malayalam and Shivaji and Gemini Ganeshan in Tamil brought some semblance of order and respite from mindless action movies.

But come early 2000 the aging Telugu and Tamil stars started a bad trend by turning action scenes into the most violent.   Directors like S R Das, VV Vinayak, Kodi Ramakrishna, Boyapati and Sandeep Vanga in Telugu, Shankar, Muroogdas and Kanaga Raj in Tamil and Prashan Neel in Kannada started making extremely violent movies with old hags like Balayya, Chiranjeevi in Telugu, Rajnikant in Tamil, Dr. Shiv Raj Kumar in Kannada. The `beaten to death’ fraction wars between two different castes and/or villages have given ample scope for Telugu stars and directors to pack their movies with extremely violent action scenes.   With Movies like Gentleman, Indra, Samara Simha Reddy, Basha, and Legend becoming big box office hits,  it has become the new trend and success formula.

Following the footsteps of the older heroes the younger ones like Prabhas, Jr. NTR, Ram Charan, Allu Arjun and Mahesh Babu in Telugu, Yash in Kannada, Vijay, Ajit, Suriya in Tamil, Tiger, Ranbir and Ranvir in Hindi have joined the bandwagon.   With Bahubali and more especially KGF 1&2, RRR, Salaar becoming huge PAN India hits, Bollywood had no option but to import directors and technicians from the South and follow the trend with movies like Animal, Pathan and Jawan, with full of violence, which have hit bull’s eye.   As a result, the mad race as to who will make better (or should we call it worse) violent movies.  Two recent releases Kill in Hindi, and Marco in Malayalam coming from not-so-popular directors proudly claim themselves to be the most violent movies.    

Kill is a start-to-finish action movie all in a moving train with some 3-4 dozen goons coming on and on attacking the hero stabbing, tearing apart and killing whosoever comes in their way in cold blood including the heroin.   There was a time when a villain used to stab (without it being shown in close-up) and then a person was shown as lying down with some blood on the clothes, the same type of picturisation when a shot is fired from a pistol.    As against that in movies like Animal, Kill and Marco heroes and villains are shown slitting throats in graphic details, knives and surgical blades are used to tear apart any part of the body like a gunny bag.  People are stabbed in eye, mouth and slit from one end to another.   Where is action in all these things?  One really gets baffled that the wise men sitting as members of the Censor Board do not find anything wrong with it.

    

Censor Board Certification requirement

The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) is a statutory film certification body under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.  Every movie (whether made in India or abroad) has to obtain certification before it is exhibited in theatres in India.   Doordarshan and Settlitte channels are under the purview of the Censor Board but OTTs are still not brought under the purview of the Censor Board.  Censor Board has a right to refuse certification and ban public exhibition of a movie in India. 

 

The Censor Board consists of a chairperson and 23 members, all of whom are appointed by the Central government. 

The Board is headquartered in Mumbai and has nine regional offices at New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Cuttak and Guwahati.

 

Guidelines for certification by the Censor Board Certification

The broad guidelines for certification inter-ilia cast a responsibility on the Censor Board to make sure that

• anti-social activities such as violence are not glorified or justified
• the modus operandi of criminals, other visuals or words likely to incite the commission of any offence are not depicted;
• scenes showing the involvement of children in violence as victims or perpetrators or as forced witnesses to violence, or showing children as being subjected to any form of child abuse.
• pointless or avoidable scenes of violence, cruelty and horror, scenes of violence primarily intended to provide entertainment and such scenes as may have the effect of de-sensitising or de-humanising people are not shown

 

The above referred guidelines are relating to violence, and it is clear that any scenes involving extreme violence should come under the radar of the Censor Board and it should toned them done drastically or eliminated completely.   But going by what we discussed about the extreme violence depicted in many movies in every Indian language, especially movies like Kill, Animal and Marco should not have been cleared by the Censor Board at any cost even with `A’ certification.      The very fact that not only such movies are cleared by the Censor but also entered our drawing rooms shows that our Censor Board is a toothless tiger which can be managed easily by the producers with deep pockets and movies with objectionable content like extreme violence, excessive doses of sex and vulgarity and child abuse have a smooth sail with censor certification.   

Do film-makers owe any responsibility towards society?

Whenever the filmmakers are questioned on the objectional content of their films and its adverse effect on society they defend by saying that they are into a commercial activity and are there to invest money to make profits and not to refine the Society.    They go a step further that people and society do not get influenced and get spoiled only by films.   They have a point when they say that if the people in the society do not get influenced by positive things shown in the films and become righteous why should films be blamed for the negative things shown to be the root cause for all societal evils?

But having said that there is no denying that negative things attract people easily and showing them in excess and in graphic details can always have a bad influence in marginal cases.  Maybe if an anti-social element under influenced by the movies of 60s and 70s stabbed anyone he might only stab once but if anyone stabs some one under the influence of current movies he will tear a person apart from one end to another leaving no chance for survival after watching the movies of 2020s.   Many criminals have admitted that they did very heinous crimes influenced by movies and they learnt many tricks as were shown in movies. That is where the Censor Board has to step in and tone down these violent movies drastically.  

Moreover, there was a time when such violent things were done by villain characters, they were shown in a bad light met a horrible end or were shown as to have realised their mistakes and refined.   But unfortunately, now such heinous crimes are being shown by heroes and it is depicted as if it’s a heroism or mechoism.    The discredit for this should be put on Hindi heroes right from Sunil Dutt, Dharmendra, Shatrughan, Vinod Khanna and Amitabh so many heroes of 60s to 90s did so many negative characters of Daku, thieves, smugglers and even terrorists.   At that time the South heroes like NTR, ANR, MGR Shivaji, Kannada Raj Kumar and Prem Nazir were doing good goodie socials, family dramas and love stories.   Come 2000, South Indian movies caught up with Bollywood and all the heroes like Rajni, Chiranjeevi, Nagarjuna and the younger lot followed the footsteps of their Bollywood counterparts.   Take half a dozen top grossers in the last 10 years, viz., KGF, Sahoo, Animal and Pushpa 1 and 2 and now Marco, heroes of all these movies are criminals and mass murderers massacring hundreds of people in the movie and there is no need to give justification to anyone – the audience or least to the Censor Board.  

If every film has to be certified and if the government and the Censor Board feel that filmmakers have unhindered freedom of speech, then why run a sham called the Censor Board?    Let there be a free run for all as is happening in the case of OTTs.  Unnecessarily Government is spending a lot of money on running the Censor Board and there is unnecessary harassment to producers managing these Board members.  

 

S. Prabhakar

2.2.2025