BEIJING, June 9 (Xinhua) -- Tom Cruise action thriller "Mission: Impossible III" (M:I3) is due to be released on the Chinese mainland on July 20, the movie's China distributor said Friday.

    The decision came after month-long rumor that the movie could be banned by Chinese censors as the movie compromises the image of Shanghai.

    "It's sure that the movie has been somewhat cut," Weng Li, deputy manager of the film exhibition and distribution arm of corporation under The China Film Group Corporation (CFGC), the movie's China distributor, told Xinhua on Friday.

    He did not tell which parts were cut, while earlier report said the scenes needing amendment included "a car chase and shootings on the streets of Shanghai" and "laundry hanging from balconies."

    The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) had put forward a recommendation for changes to the CFGC, an official told Xinhua last month.

    Speculators had said the movie may be banned because of a portrayal of Shanghai that includes tattered clothes being hung on bamboo rods and a slow police response to a trespassing attempt by Cruise's character, secret agent Ethan Hunt.

    Bootleg DVDs of "M:I3," however, have appeared in Beijing for approximately a month.

    In an audiovisual product store under the Beijing Modern & Classic Culture Co., Ltd near the China Art Gallery, a salesgirl said their copies are the kind of inferior fake ones, which were shot in a cinema with a hand-held camera and have a bad audiovisual effect.

    Yet their price - 8 yuan (1 U.S. dollar) each - is as the same as the good version of a pirated DVD of other movies. "It's a new movie. There're people buying even if relatively expensive," she said.

    A hawker on the Xuanwumenwai Street told Xinhua on Friday that he has sold the "M:I3" fake copies, purchased from south China's Guangdong Province, in Beijing for about a month for 5 yuan (about 0.60 U.S. dollar) each.

    On the right side of the cover of a fake copy, armed Cruise poses coolly, with words "M:I:III," "The Mission Begins May 5" and a wrongly-spelt Chinese title printed on.

    On the back, there are introductions in both Chinese and English, symbols of the DVD's producers - Macromedia and Paramount, and words "This is a region 1 disc designed to be compactible with region 1 DVD players."

    "The inferior pirated DVDs won't have influence on the movie's box office," Weng told Xinhua. Enditem