Django Unchained reopens in China’s cinemas

Django Unchained has reopened in cinemas in China, a month after it was pulled for “technical reasons”.

A manager at a UME Cineplex cinema in Beijing said: “The new version is one minute shorter than the previous one.”

He speculated that a nude scene may have been cut.

Quentin Tarantino’s Oscar-winning film’s cancellation in April led to speculation that it did not meet censorship regulations required by cultural authorities.

Django Unchained stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a plantation owner and Jamie Foxx as a freed slave who trains to become a bounty hunter and demands his wife’s freedom before the US Civil War.

Distributor Sony Pictures said Quentin Tarantino had agreed to “slight adjustments” to reduce the violence prior to its initial release in China last month.

Sony Pictures executive Zhang Miao said the changes to the film included “tuning the blood to a darker colour” and “lowering the height of the splatter of blood” in an interview with China’s Southern Metropolis Daily.

Django Unchained, the first of Quentin Tarantino’s to be released in China, had been cleared by the country’s rigorous censors, who generally remove violence, sex and politically edgy content.

Earlier this year, some Chinese cinema-goers were left confused because of cuts to the James Bond film Skyfall that included unflattering references to the sex trade in the Chinese territory of Macau.

Meanwhile, Cloud Atlas with Tom Hanks was shown in Chinese cinemas without 38 minutes of footage that included gay and straight love scenes.