Lust, Caution, the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion winner for best picture, will be cut by 30 minutes for audiences on the Chinese mainland, renewing debate about the adoption of film rating system.

With a original running time of two hours and 36 minutes, the film was to have a large number of sex scenes excised to become "relatively clean", said the film's director Ang Lee.

Lee's film, called Se, Jie in Chinese, set in Japanese-occupied Shanghai in 1940s, contains bold sex scenes between a young woman spy played by novice actress Tang Wei and powerful political figure played by Tony Leung, and has been given the restrictive NC-17 label in the United States, banning viewers under 17.

"Authorities told me that there was no film rating system on the mainland so they let me cut it," said Lee.

"Children are able to watch it on the mainland," he added.

Chinese director Jia Zhangke, last year's winner of the award for Still Life, considered it's "a pity" to cut, saying the mainland urgently needed a rating system so as to "enable audiences above 18 to enjoy full-version films".

Chinese film star Gong Li, a long-time advocate of film rating, submitted a proposal to China's top political advisory body at its annual session in March that outlined the development of such a system.

But the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television refuses to introduce the rating system under its several-decade-old belief that "films not suitable for children are not suitable for adults, either."

Lee's film received a warm response in Venice, but a large number of sex scenes aroused worries that the film might meet obstacles on the mainland.

Cinema sources said the film would open on the mainland on October 26, a month later than the original schedule for a simultaneous opening around the world late September.

Online discussion about the film has been unexpectedly hot. The news.nen.com.cn website commented that mainland audiences could simply watch the full version on pirated discs, and it doubted whether the cinema version could attract audiences without the sex scenes. The beelink.com website said the film should be treated as "art" and not as "pornography".

Lee said he was going to respect the official advice, "cutting the film himself" and protecting its integrity. He said he "took pains to cut it" because he attached much importance to the Chinese market.

"The spirit of the film remains despite the cutting and the fluency will not be affected," said Lee who believed that the film still "looks nice" after surgery.

"For a viewer who has not watched the full version, the short version remains reasonable," Lee said, adding mainland audiences might not feel "so uneasy" and "shocked" about the film.

Besides cutting the sex scenes, some violent scenes are also to be cut, which made Lee "feel more pity".

(Xinhua News Agency September 11, 2007)