Imagethief and Mrs. Imagethief took themselves round to the splendid, new Wanda cinema in Beijing this weekend to catch the latest installment of Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean" series.

Imagethief was, in particular, looking forward to the "Singapore" segment of the film, which introduces Chow Yun Fat's Chinese pirate character, Sao Feng. Having seen some of the online clips on the scenes set in Singapore, I was preparing to nitpick the historically inappropriate architecture. I realize that in a series that features an enormous, boat-eating squid, an undead monkey, and a city made of a vast pile of beached pirate ships, this seems like a self-defeating exercise. But satisfaction is where we make it.

Imagine, then, my surprise when that entire segment wasn't in the movie.

Today I found out why, courtesy of AFP:

China's film censors have taken the scissors to the latest entry in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, cutting in half Chow Yun-Fat's role because it allegedly humiliates the Chinese people.

The Chinese star has won praise for his turn as Captain Sao Feng, but mainland censors have slashed his screen time from 20 minutes to just 10, state media reports.

The cuts were made because the role "vilifies and humiliates the Chinese," the official Xinhua news agency said.

Xinhua did not provide specific criticisms but cited a film magazine's description of the character - bald and scarred with long nails and a beard - as "in line with Hollywood's old tradition of demonising the Chinese."

The cuts were made according to the "relevant regulations on film censorship" as well as "China's actual conditions," film official Zhang Pimin told the agency.

Zhang says the deletions will not spoil the film but fans on sina.com, a popular website, say it is now difficult to follow the plot.

Zhang is technically correct. The subtraction does not specifically spoil the film, which is way too long and hard to follow anyway. But it is obnoxious, petty and self defeating, since no cinematic insult to the Chinese people, especially one in a film that is full of ludicrous stereotypes, can compete with the self-satire inflicted on the nation by SARFT, which is apparently the regulatory equivalent of the wan, sniffly child who's feelings are easily hurt.

Nevertheless, passing the film with cuts was an improvement over what happened to the second installment of the series, which was banned altogether for reasons of "feudal superstition" nominally having to do with scenes involving cannibalism. But more likely for reasons having to do with commerce, politics and China's tight restrictions on the total number of foreign films allowed into the country in any given year (twenty at last count). Compared with that, the current edits seem pretty forgiving.

In fact, considering that there is still a substantial amount of Chow Yun Fat's role in the film, including a scene in which he essentially threatens to rape Kiera Knightley's character, one is left to wonder what SARFT considers demeaning behavior in a Chinese pirate character. There is also a second round of conspicuous cutting during a "pirate council" scene that is essentially a smorgasbord of global ethnic stereotyping, including a female Chinese "pirate lord" who apparently escaped into the movie out of a Peking Opera troupe. I have no idea what got cut there.

Ultimately we can speculate as to whether there are deeper motivations behind the cuts (perhaps Singapore complained about the incorrect architecture?) but, like all Chinese movie edits its really more symbolic than functional. There are plenty of other Chinese pirates around who will do their best to ensure that we get to see the movie in all its uncut glory for 8RMB.

 Not as insulting as paying 50RMB to see it.