hankyoreh

saying that the “restricted viewing” rating

The Constitutional Court ruled that a clause in the law on film and video promotion, which permits film and video to be rated as “restricted,” is does not conform to the Constitution, meaning that the law is still in force until a new law revision is implemented

The ruling is intended to clarify what qualifies as a “restricted viewing” rating thereby diminishing the significance of the Korea Media Rating Board’s rating system, which has been criticized by the nation’s film industry.

The court said on July 31 that the clause does not clearly stipulate which movies fall into the “restricted viewing” category. The current law on film and video promotion defines the “restricted viewing” category as “the films that need some ristriction on public screenings and advertising.” The court said that the clause doesn’t mention the condition and only describes what restriction will be imposed on the “restricted films.”

The ruling was made with seven in favor and two objections. The court recommended that the National Assembly revise the clause by the end of next year.

In 2005, World Cinema, a film importer, asked the board to rate the Mexican movie “Battle in Heaven” and the film was given a “restricted viewing” rating for being sexually provocative. The film, which competed at the Cannes Film Festival, had been screened for people ages 18 and over in Germany, England and Brazil and for people ages 16 and over in the Netherlands. World Cinema filed a petition to the court, saying that the rating board’s standards were ambiguous.

The KMRB has designated 23 films as restricted since 2002, when it first began to enforce the rating system. Eleven of these were eventually rated as restricted and the remaining 12 were rated for viewers 18 and over after problematic scenes were removed.

However, theaters are not allowed to screen films that have a restricted rating, so being rated as restricted is akin to being banned from public screening, the film industry says. The industry says that the board rates films according to arbitrary standards and disregards a film’s content or theme.

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