'Fifty Shades of Grey' banned in Malaysia

"Fifty Shades of Grey" will not be released in Malaysia, reports Variety. The highly anticipated and controversial S&M-themed movie was not granted a certificated by the LPF, which is the Malaysian Censorship Board.

Chairman Abdul Halim Abdul Hamid said in a statement:

"[The film is] more pornography than a movie ... The board made a decision in view of the film containing scenes that are not of natural sexual content. The content is more sadistic, featuring scenes of a woman being tied to a bed and whipped."

"Fifty Shades of Grey," which stars Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson as the mysterious Christian Grey and his sexual protegé Anastasia Steele, is based on the best-selling and wildly popular E.L. James novel.

The Cut reported that the movie features 20 minutes of sex out of its 100-minute running time.

However, it notably contains much less explicit sex than in the book. Gawker's Kelly Conaboy points out that director Sam Taylor-Johnson and E.L. James have been fighting over how much sex to feature in the film.

But even 20 minutes of sex is enough to encourage sexually conservative countries to ban the film.

Time also reports that domestic violence activists are boycotting the film.

"Fifty Shades of Grey' hits theaters on February 13, 2015.