Cloud Atlas made my Top 15 of 2012 largely due to its ambition and sprawl and attempts to do something fresh. It needed nearly all of its nearly three hours of running time to do so. While it’s hardly surprising, China has released the film with thirty minutes chopped out and without the participation of the three filmmakers who meticulously crafted the narrative to being ALMOST comprehensible at the longer length. Without thirty minutes, and I don’t care which thirty minutes, it’s just not possible to get what makes the movie what it is.
China. You so silly.
The stuff they cut out is exposition and “passionate love scenes”, things which sort of help the viewer “get” the film and understand the great lengths the characters go through to achieve their goals. Luckily all the scenes of human destruction remain because China got no problem wit’ dat.
China. You so silly.
Source: THR