China makes huge cuts to Men in Black 3 – but not because it’s rubbish

China has wisely decided to make heavy cuts to Men in Black 3 before it reaches the country though curiously not because the film is rubbish.

The sci-fi sequel - which received a two-star review on JOE last weekend - has been judged harshly by Beijing censors, though not because of the overall quality of the Will Smith-starring blockbuster.

Instead, the Chinese were upset by what they deem an insulting characterisation of their people for a Chinese restaurant-set action scene, pictured above.

In the scene, Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones' Agents J and K are ambushed by an alien disguised as a Chinese waitress, in addition to the venue's patrons, who are all villainous aliens too. In total 13 minutes have been removed from the film’s short 106-minute runtime.

Rather surprisingly, the time travel storyline of the film escaped unscathed, even though China has apparently banned time travel from appearing in TV shows. Yeah, seriously...

"Unless there is a flattering image of Chinese people, you are going to run into a challenge from the State Administration of Film, Television and Radio (SARFT)," said Robert Cain, a partner in Pacific Bridge Pictures on the nature of censorship

"The list of taboos is so long it is very often too difficult to make anything entertaining," he added.

"I had a friend submit a script and the censors asked him to change the name of one of the characters. He could not understand why so he asked them and they said it was the pet name that Deng Xiaoping (China's former paramount leader) used for his granddaughter."