The British Board of Film Classification had intended to give the movie a 15 rating, but agreed to a 12A following the removal of seven seconds of brutality and bloodshed.
Extreme violence such as that of Martyrs is big news in the film world right now, as the British Board Of Film Classification have just passed Lars Von Trier's new horror movie, Anti-Christ, uncut at certificate 18.
Love is Strange has been rated a 15 in the UK, with the British Board of Film Classification also citing "strong language", but the movie is a PG in Canada.
The French film classification board, the Centre National du Cinéma (CNC), gave the movie an over-16 showing licence in June.
It will, I suspect, be imitated henceforth by studios and movie producers keen to avoid the wrath of fretful parents and the British Board of Film Classification.
The central rape scene in Peckinpah's film caused the uncut version of the movie to be banned on video and DVD until 2002 by the British Board of Film Classification.
"We don't condone it, don't support it and don't condemn it either," he said, pointing out that it is similar to parents making a decision to take children to films such as the Harry Potter series that they may not strictly be allowed to attend under movie age classification rules.
The BBFC's broader considerations regarding language, and the way it may determine a movie's classification, are as follows: "Language which people may find offensive includes the use of expletives with a sexual, religious or racial association, derogatory language about minority groups and commonly understood rude gestures.
While we are analyzing the movie review classification, which has ground truth labels, we will take a moment to further support our claims for the inaccuracy of these methods at the sentence level.
