“Lust, Caution,” director Ang Lee’s Golden Lion winner for best picture at this year’s Venice Film Festival, will lose some 30 minutes of sexually explicit scenes in order to satisfy China’s censorship rules, according to state media reports.

The film originally runs two hours and 36 minutes, telling an intricate story of love, set in Japanese-occupied Shanghai in the 1940s. The multiple sex scenes throughout the spy thriller have earned it an NC-17 label from the Motion Picture Association of America due to graphic, pervasive sexual content.

Venice Film Festival judges nevertheless awarded the Golden Lion for best picture to the film, making this the second trophy for Taiwanese director Ang Lee.

Xinhua news agency reports that 30 minutes will be cut from the film in China; Lee himself has said that a large number of scenes need to be removed to make it “relatively clean” for the Chinese mainland.

The steamy scenes feature actress Tang Wei, playing a young female spy, and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, as a powerful political figure.

“Authorities told me that there was no film rating system on the mainland so they let me cut it,” said Lee, as quoted by Xinhua. “Children are able to watch it on the mainland,” he added.

The director was content with having been able to modify his film himself, thus preserving its integrity. “The spirit of the film remains despite the cutting and the fluency will not be affected,” Lee said. “For a viewer who has not watched the full version, the short version remains reasonable.”

This has refueled the debate over the need of creating a film rating system in China. The country does not have one and its censor, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, considers that “films not suitable for children are not suitable for adults, either.”

Xinhua quotes Chinese director Jia Zhangke, who took home the Golden Lion last year for “Still Life,” saying it was “a pity” to cut films and that a rating system is urgently needed, so as to “enable audiences above 18 to enjoy full-version films.”

Besides cutting the sex scenes, some violent scenes are also to be cut, which made Lee “feel more pity,” the Chinese news agency says.

Ang Lee, 52, previously received the Venice Film Festival’s top honor in 2005, for his gay-themed drama “Brokeback Mountain,” which also earned him the Academy Award for Best Director that year.

His second victory at the prestigious film festival generated heartfelt pride in his country, with national media calling him “the glory of Taiwan,” reported Reuters.