Ang Lee's Golden Lion winner Lust, Caution has been approved for release in China at the end of October after being shorn of some of its sexual content.

Friday's Beijing News reported that the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) said the movie "was cut but not by much".

"The shortened version will debut in late October," the SARFT source was quoted as saying.

Earlier reports said that only seven minutes of the film, all deemed too sexually explicit, were cut by Lee himself and all four main sex scenes remained almost intact. It has been previously suggested the film could be cut by as much as 30 minutes.

The movie's distributor in the Chinese mainland also confirmed the news but said it did not know the details.

Lust, Caution won the top Golden Lion prize at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month, Lee's second win in Venice following Brokeback Mountain in 2005.

(Xinhua News Agency September 22, 2007)