Explaining the Vanishing Pirate

Last week I mentioned the previously underexplained cuts that China's film board made to the Chinese pirate character played by Hong Kong star Chow Yun-fat in the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Now the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television is giving some more reasoning for the censorship, which previously had been attributed merely to violence. According to Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency, his role was cut for "for vilifying and defacing the Chinese and insulting Singapore." The blog Imagethief reports here on the censored version, and finds the cuts "obnoxious, petty and self defeating."