Parts of Martin Scorsese's The Wolf Of Wall Street has been censored for its release in Singapore.

Up to five minutes of the movie has reportedly been snipped before being stamped with a R21 rating.

It stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a stockbroker and depicts his prostitute-canoodling, drug-addled life of excesses.

According to the Internet/ film party-pooper Media Development Authority's films classification database website:

- Four edits were required for the utterances of “Jesus f**king Christ”.

This was done in accordance with the Classification Guidelines, which state that “language that denigrates religion or is religiously profane” is not allowed for all ratings.

- Two sexual scenes were dropped as they have exceeded the Classification Guidelines.

The first scene depicts a threesome sexual scene involving two men and a woman, and the second is an orgiastic-like scene in an airplane where various couples are seen in sexual acts, some with multiple partners.

The scenes have exceeded the Guidelines which state that “explicit portrayals of sex between persons of the same gender are not allowed” and “gratuitous, exploitative or offensive depictions or sexual activity including fetishes or practices which are offensive or abhorrent” are not allowed for all ratings.

The Wolf Of Wall Street got censored elsewhere on Earth

Director Martin Scorsese made edits to his film to ensure that The Wolf Of Wall Street got a more user-friendly R rating ahead of its US release over Christmas.

But Singapore, in comparison, is still more liberal than India, whose censorship board cut the film by 6 minutes.

Prudish Lebanon censored 30 minutes in total.

Shortened

As a result of the censorship, the total running time of the movie was shortened from 179 to 175 minutes.

Not like it matters to the MDA that The Wolf Of Wall Street has been tipped to be a contender at the upcoming Oscars.

Or that the movie's R rating in the United States means that children under the age of 17 can watch it if they are accompanied by adults.

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What's the best solution for consumers?

The best solution is to purchase a Blu-Ray film online or travel to the US to watch the screening of the original film in its entirety.

Ok, kidding.

The best solution for now is to boycott the film completely. This will give the film distributors and cinemas screening it the jitters because they will be losing money. And they will lobby the censors, who will release the movie in its full unedited glory.

Just like what happened with Lee Ang's Lust, Caution in 2007, where Singapore audiences got to watch the full 157-minute version passed clean with an R21 rating by the Board of Film Censors after a bit of hullabaloo.

When it was released on Oct. 4 that year, the edited version was missing nine of the best minutes with the rumpy pumpy portions snipped off. Barely a month later, the full film came out.

Moral of the story?

In Wall Street as in Singapore, money talks and everything else is chit chat.

Not watching The Wolf of Wall Street? We have 20 other movies to recommend this year.

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