Tom Cruise action thriller Mission: Impossible III (M:I3) is due to be released on the Chinese mainland on July 20, a state-owned foreign movie distributor said Friday, the same day it withdrew The Da Vinci Code from Chinese cinemas.

 

The releasing decision came after month-long rumor that the movie could be banned by Chinese censors as the movie compromises the image of Shanghai.

 

"It's sure that the movie has been somewhat cut," Weng Li, deputy manager of the film exhibition and distribution arm under The China Film Group Corporation (CFGC), the movie's China distributor, told Xinhua News Agency at the mention of M:I3 on Friday.

 

He did not tell which parts were cut, while earlier report said the scenes needing amendment included "a car chase and shootings on the streets of Shanghai" and "laundry hanging from balconies."

 

The SARFT put forward a recommendation for changes to the CFGC, an official with the SARFT told Xinhua last month.

 

Speculators had said the movie might be banned because of a portrayal of Shanghai that includes tattered clothes being hung on bamboo rods and a slow police response to a trespassing attempt by Cruise's character, secret agent Ethan Hunt.

 

Bootleg DVDs of M:I3, however, have appeared in Beijing for approximately a month.

 

In an audiovisual product store under the Beijing Modern & Classic Culture Co., Ltd near the China Art Gallery, a salesgirl said their M:I3 copies are the kind of inferior fake ones, which were shot in a cinema with a hand-held camera and have a bad audiovisual effect.

 

Yet their price - 8 yuan (US$1) each - is as the same as the good version of a pirated DVD of other movies. "It's a new movie. There're people buying even if relatively expensive," she said.

 

A hawker on the Xuanwumenwai Street told Xinhua on Friday that he has sold the M:I3 fake copies, purchased from south China's Guangdong Province, in Beijing for about a month for 5 yuan (about US$0.60) each.

 

On the right side of the cover of a fake copy, armed Cruise poses coolly, with words M:I:III, "The Mission Begins May 5" and a wrongly-spelt Chinese title printed on.

 

On the back, there are introductions in both Chinese and English, symbols of the DVD's producers - Macromedia and Paramount, and words "This is a region 1 disc designed to be compactable with region 1 DVD players."

 

"The inferior pirated DVDs won't have an influence on the movie's box office in China," Weng told Xinhua.

 

M:I3 has grossed over US$122 million in North America five weeks since its release, The Associated Press has reported.

 

The movie was slated in China for July because regulations from the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) put a limit on the number of imported films allowed to be shown in China from June 10 to July 10 to protect the domestic film industry, Weng added.

 

With Ice Age 2: The Meltdown released Friday and Poseidon released on May 30 in China, there will be two imported movies playing in Chinese cinemas during the month.

 

In light of the regulations, the blockbuster The Da Vinci Code was withdrawn from Chinese cinemas by its China distributor CFGC on Friday, three weeks after its release here.

 

The withdrawal is to make way for homemade movies releasing in the upcoming month, Weng told Xinhua.

 

"We made a purely commercial decision. No single film could monopolize the market for one or two months, not even in the United States," Weng said, "We're making room for the next month when 10-plus homemade films will show across the country."

 

(Xinhua News Agency June 10, 2006)