Director: ‘Hunger Games’ violence key to message

Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence has defended the inclusion of violent scenes in the final film, despite its 12A certificate.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 shows the bombing of young children, a public execution, and an attack by human-sized mutated “lizard mutts” with flesh-tearing jaws — which ends in the death of a character.

The director said: “In the visual interpretation of the stories, I wanted to make sure that we were again focusing on the emotional consequence of it, not the carnage, not the blood... You’ll notice there’s very, very little blood. That’s not what I wanted to explore, that’s not what I’m interested in.”