BBFC News

Howling III: The Marsupials is a 1987 Australia comedy horror by Philippe Mora.
Starring William Yang, Deby Wightman and Christopher Pate.

There are no censorship issues with this release. There is a little bit of discrepancy in age ratings though. The BBFC claim that it should be 18 rated, whilst the MPAA have decided on a PG-13 rating.

The 2019 Blu-ray release was passed 18 uncut by the BBFC for strong gory images for:

• 2019 Screenbound Pictures (RB) Blu-ray at UK Amazon released on 7th October 2019

The 1987 rating from the MPAA pre-dates rating reasons, but PG-13 has the generic warning: Parents Strongly Cautioned - Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

And by way of a tie break, IMDb's parental guidance seems to side with the MPAA's opinion:

Violence & Gore Edit

Mild. Lots of werewolves attacks are obscured and off camera, but some blood and bite marks are shown.

Frightening & Intense Scenes Edit

Mild. Some werewolf transformations may appear frightening to young children.

I've never heard of any alternative versions of the film that would explain this apparent discrepancy.

Promotional Material

Barry Otto (Strictly Ballroom) is maverick Professor Harry Beckmeyer who learns to understand the torment of a freak species when he experiments on a captured "Werewolf" in his lab. When the goverments wants the experiments stopped and all traces of the species wiped out Harry (who's now fallen in love with the marsupial girl, Jerboa - Imogen Annesley) is determined to protect her no matter what.

New age rating symbols come into effect for theatrical and VOD services on 31 October 2019.

For packaged media, introducing the new symbols requires changes to the relevant piece of secondary legislation, the Video Recordings Act (Labelling) Regulations 2012. It is expected that the necessary changes to legislation will be made in time for the new symbols to be used on packaged media starting from 6 April 2020.

Presumably the change is basically to simplify the background so that the symbols can display better on small screens. There is also two distinct colour changes:

• The video 12 rating changes from red to orange to match the orange 12A symbol for theatrical releases.
• The 15 certificate changes from red to pink. This matches the Irish theatrical !5A symbol, so perhaps there is some future unification there. Many films have a joint video distribution in the UK and Ireland but for the moment the IFCO video symbols are very different.

IFCO Theatrical symbols

Batman: Hush is a 2019 film by Justin Copeland.
Starring Jason O'Mara, Jennifer Morrison and Stuart Allan.

A mysterious villain puppeteering Gotham's most dangerous forces leads the Dark Knight into uncharted waters in Batman: Hush, the next entry in the popular series of DC Universe Movies. An adaptation of the seminal DC classic tale, Batman: Hush centres on a shadowy new villain known only as Hush, who uses Gotham's Rogues Gallery to destroy Batman's crime-fighting career, as well as Bruce Wayne's personal life--which has already been complicated by a relationship with Selina Kyle, aka Catwoman.

UK: Passed 15 uncut for strong violence, bloody images:

• 2019 Warner Bros RB Blu-ray at UK Amazon released on 12th August 2019
• 2019 Warner Bros R2 DVD at UK Amazon released on 12th August 2019
• 2019 Warner Bros Amazon Prime VoD [UK only] at UK Amazon

US: Rated MPAA PG-13 for violence and action, suggestive material, and language.

Offsite Comment: Batman: Hush is Rated 15 by the BBFC -- How Come??

See article from bleedingcool.com by Rich Johnston

Flummoxed by a 15 rating for the Batman cartoon Hush.

Could it be that the batarang was interpreted as a ninja throwing star?

...Read the full article from bleedingcool.com

ICO's Data Protection Training The Pavlov Method
☑	Yes I won't read this message. and yes you can do what the fuck you like with my porn browsing data
☑	Yes please do, I waiver all my GDPR rights
☑	Yes I won't read this message. and yes, feel free to blackmail me
☑	Yes you can do anything you like 'to make my viewing experience better'
☑	Yes, no need to ask, I'll tick anything

With callous disregard for the safety of porn users, negligent lawmakers devised an age verification scheme with no effective protection of porn users' identity and porn browsing history.

The Government considered that GDPR requirements, where internet users are trainer to blindly tick a box to give consent to the internet companies doing what the fuck they like with your data. Now internet users are well conditioned like Pavlov's dog to tick the hundreds of tick boxes they are presented with daily. And of course nobody ever reads what they are consenting to, life's too short.

After a while the government realised that the total lack of data protection for porn users may actually prevent their scheme form getting off the ground, as porn users simply would refuse to get age verified. This would result in bankrupt AV companies and perverse disinsentives for porn websites. Those that implement AV would then experience a devastating drop off in traffic and those that refuse age verification would be advantaged.

So the government commissioned a voluntary kitemark scheme for AV companies to try and demonstrate to auditors that they keep porn identity and browsing history safely. But really the government couldn't let go of its own surveillance requirements to keep the browsing history of porn users. Eventually some AV companies won the right to have a scheme that did not log people's browsing history, but most still do maintain a log (justified as 'fraud protection' in the BBFC kitemark scheme description).

well Now it appears that those that try to avoid the dangers of AV via VPNs may be not s safe as they would hope. The Henry Jackson Society has been researching the VPN industry and has found that 30% of VPNs are owned by Chinese companies that have direct data paths to the Chinese government.

Surely this will have extreme security issues as privately porn using people could then be set up for blackmail or pressure from the Chinese authorities.

The government needs to put an end to the current AV scheme and go back to the drawing board. It needs to try again, this time with absolute legal requirements to immediately delete porn users identity data and to totally ban the retention of browsing logs.

Anyway, the Henry Jackson Society explains its latest revelations:

Chinese spies could exploit Government's new porn laws to gather compromising material on businessmen, civil servants and public figures, say think tanks.

They say Chinese firms have quietly cornered the market in technology that enables people to access porn sites without having to register their personal details with age verification firms or buy an age ID card in a newsagent.

The new law require those accessing porn sites to prove they are 18 but the checks and registration can be by-passed by signing up to a Virtual Private Network (VPNs). These anonymise the location of a computer by routing its traffic through a server based at remote locations.

It has now emerged through an investigation by security experts that many of the VPNs are secretly controlled by Chinese owned firms -- as many as 30% of the networks worldwide.

It means that a VPN users' viewing habits and data can not only be legally requested by the Chinese Government under its lax privacy laws but the VPNs could themselves also be state-controlled, according to the Adam Smith Institute and Henry Jackson Society.

Sam Armstrong, spokesman for the Henry Jackson Society, said:

A list of billions of late-night website visits of civil servants, diplomats, and politicians could -- in the wrong hands -- amount to the largest-ever kompromat file compiled on British individuals.

Those in sensitive jobs are precisely the types of individuals who would seek to use a VPN to circumvent the trip to the newsagent to buy a porn pass.

Yet, the opaque ownership of these VPNs by Chinese firms means there is a real likelihood any browsing going through them could fall into the hands of Chinese intelligence.

ICO's Data Protection Training The Pavlov Method
☑	Yes I won't read this message. and yes you can do what the fuck you like with my porn browsing data
☑	Yes please do, I waiver all my GDPR rights
☑	Yes I won't read this message. and yes, feel free to blackmail me
☑	Yes you can do anything you like 'to make my viewing experience better'
☑	Yes, no need to ask, I'll tick anything

Digital Minister Margot James has apologised for the six-month delay on the so-called porn block, which had been due to take effect today (16th July). It is designed to force pornography websites to verify users are over 18.

But the law has been delayed twice - most recently because the UK government failed to properly notify European regulators. James told the BBC:

I'm extremely sorry that there has been a delay. I know it sounds incompetent. Mistakes do happen, and I'm terribly sorry that it happened in such an important area,

Of course the fundamental mistake is that the incompetent lawmakers cared only about 'protecting the children' and gave bugger all consideration to the resulting endangerment of the adults visiting porn sites.

It took the government months, but it finally started to dawn on them that perhaps they should do something to protect the identity data that they are forcing porn users to hand over that can then be pinned to their porn browsing history. They probably still didn't care about porn users but perhaps realised that the scheme would not get of the ground if it proved so toxic that no one would ever sign up for age verification at all.

Well as a belated after thought the government, BBFC and ICO went away to dream up a few standards that perhaps the age verifiers ought to be sticking to try and ensure that data is being kept safe.

So then the whole law ended up as a bag of worms. The authorities now realise that there should be level of data protection, but unfortunately this is not actually backed up by the law that was actually passed. So now the data protection standards suggested by the government/BBFC/ICO are only voluntary and there remains nothing in law to require the data actually be kept safe. And there is no recourse against anyone who ends up exploiting people's data.

The Open Rights Group have just written an open letter to the government to ask that government to change their flawed law and actually require that porn users' data is kept properly safe:

The Rt Hon Jeremy Wright QC MP Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

Re: BBFC Age Verification Privacy Certification Scheme

Dear Secretary of State,

We write to ask you to legislate without delay to place a statutory requirement on the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) to make their privacy certification scheme for age verification providers mandatory. Legislation is also needed to grant the BBFC powers to require compliance reports and penalise non-compliant providers.

As presently constituted, the BBFC certification scheme will be a disaster. Our analysis report, attached, shows that rather than setting out objective privacy safeguards to which companies must adhere, the scheme allows companies to set their own rules and then demonstrate that these are being followed. There are no penalties for providers which sign up to the standard and then fail to meet its requirements.

The broadly-drafted, voluntary scheme encourages a race to the bottom on privacy protection. It provides no consistent guarantees for consumers about how their personal data will be safeguarded and puts millions of British citizens at serious risk of fraud, blackmail or devastating sexual exposure.

The BBFC standard was only published in April. Some age verification providers have admitted that they are not ready. Others have stated that for commercial reasons they will not engage with the scheme. This means that the bureaucratic delay to age verification's roll-out can now be turned to advantage. The Government needs to use this delay to introduce legislation, or at the least issue guidance under section 27 of the Digital Economy Act 2017, that will ensure the privacy and security of online users is protected.

We welcome the opportunity to bring this issue to your attention and await your response.

Yours sincerely,

Jim Killock Executive Director Open Rights Group

Eastern Condors is a 1987 Hong Kong action war drama by Sammo Kam-Bo Hung.
Starring Sammo Kam-Bo Hung, Biao Yuen and Haing S Ngor.

Passed 18 after cuts for animal cruelty for cinema , VHS and DVD. The BBFC cuts were waived for 18 rated Blu-ray in 2019

The previous BBFC cuts were for animal cruelty, pulling the head off a snake.

98:18s

UK: Passed 18 uncut for strong bloody violence with previous BBFC cuts waived: 2019 Eureka [Three Films With Sammo Hung] (RB) Blu-ray at UK Amazon released on 23rd September 2019

Promotional Material

Presented here are three highlights from Sammo Hung s incredible career, showcasing his incredible skill and artistry both in front of, and behind the camera.

The Iron-Fisted Monk [1977] Sammo Hung s directorial debut, The Iron-Fisted Monk introduced many of the choreographic and editing techniques that would become commonplace in modern action cinema. A significantly darker and more violent film than audiences were used to, the film was originally cut when released on UK home video, but is presented here fully uncut for its worldwide Blu-ray debut from a brand new 2K restoration .

The Magnificent Butcher [1979] Directed by the legendary Yuen Woo-ping as a spiritual successor to his earlier smash hit, Drunken Master, The Magnificent Butcher stars Sammo as Butcher Lam Sai-wing, a pupil of Wong Fei-hung (the role Jackie Chan portrayed in Drunken Master , but here played by Kwan Tak-hing who played the legendary folk hero in over 70 films). When Lam is framed for murder by a rival clan, he must track down the real murderer and fight to clear his name. To be strong enough to have a chance of winning, he must train under the original Drunken Master, Beggar So! Presented from a brand new 2K restoration .

Eastern Condors [1987] Quite possibly Sammo s best film, this high-kicking tribute to The Dirty Dozen sees ten convicts offered amnesty if they undertake a deadly mission behind enemy lines in Vietnam to destroy a top-secret munitions dump. Presented here fully uncut for the first time ever in the UK, and from a brand new 2K restoration , this film is an absolute must-see!

BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES:

• Stunning 1080p presentation of all three films on Blu-ray, from brand new 2K restorations and in their original widescreen aspect ratios.
• Original Cantonese mono tracks for all three films
• English audio options, all three films include the option of classic English dubs from the films original international releases, and the newer English dubs produced for later home video releases
• The Iron-Fisted Monk - Fully Restored Cantonese mono track, with original sound effects reinserted after being absent from previous releases
• The Magnificent Butcher Alternate Cantonese mono track featuring a unique mix and different music cues
• Eastern Condors: The Export Version [94 mins] Presented in 2K, a shorter edit of the film released to international markets
• Newly translated English subtitles (optional) for all three films
• Brand new audio commentaries on Eastern Condors and The Magnificent Butcher by martial-arts cinema authority Mike Leeder and filmmaker Arne Venema
• Brand new audio commentary on The Iron-Fisted Monk and Eastern Condors by Asian film expert Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival)
• Multiple interviews with Sammo Hung, talking about his work on each film
• Interview with actor and stuntman Yuen Wah, talking about his work on Eastern Condors
• Interview with Yuen Woo-ping, talking about his work on The Magnificent Butcher
• Eastern Condors Live! a live performance from the 1987 Miss Hong Kong Pageant
• Trailers for all three films
• O-Card Slipcase
• Limited Edition Collector s booklet [First Print Run of 2000 units ONLY] featuring new writing on all three films by James Oliver

Every 3 months the BBFC reports on appeals from the public and website owners about excessive blocking by mobile ISPs.

These appeals follow very much the pattern followed by previous reports. The ISPs clearly have a policy to slap an 18 rating on sites selling VPNs and CBD products (cannabis related, but without psycho active effects).  The BBFC continues to find that neither of these topics requires an 18 rating. But the ISPs clearly don't take heed, as there will surely be another set next quarter.

This month the BBFC did find that an 18 rating was required for a website campaigning for the legalisation of psychedelic drugs.