Priya Gupta (BOMBAY TIMES; March 3, 2014)

Anurag Kashyap’s Ugly has been ready for release for a while, but the film has still not been released due to the Censor Board insisting on the super of ‘Smoking Kills’, which the Ugly team has challenged owing to creative reasons. They believe that if smoking is to be really stopped, then it needs to be banned.

Bombay Times has learnt from sources that Phantom, the producers of the film Ugly, wanted to attach the trailer of Ugly with their upcoming film Queen, but the Censor again denied them the permission on the same grounds saying that they will not grant them the certification until they put the ‘Smoking Kills’ super in the trailer also. Well, while that is the technical reason given, we heard the real reason for denying them permission, was the super that Ugly put at the end of the trailer saying: ‘To be released as soon as we win the case’. We were able to lay our hands on the copy of this trailer.
 
TIMES VIEW
Putting a super of ‘Smoking Kills’ not only takes away the creativity from filmmaking, but also reduces the viewing pleasure of an audience. If we want people to stop smoking in our country, the real solution lies in banning smoking as against putting creative breaks.