Authors:

The violence you witness is Denzel doing it and we're taking some visual effects and doing some things and you see something happen it's happening in front of you as opposed to cutting away and doing a bunch of tricks. It's in front of you. So it's hard not to make it a hard "R" if you see a guy get punched and teeth wind up in someone's knuckles.

"Director Antoine Fuqua Talks THE EQUALIZER, Westerns, the Hard R Rating, Changes from the 80s Series, and More on Set". Interview with Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub, collider.com. August 25, 2014.
The violence you witness is Denzel doing it and we're taking some visual effects and doing some things and you see something happen it's happening in front of you as opposed to cutting away and doing a bunch of tricks.