ANG Lee's new erotic spy thriller is doing solid business in Malaysia, its distributor said today, despite criticism by some viewers after 14 minutes of violent and sexual scenes were trimmed to placate government censors.

The Oscar-winning Taiwanese director supervised an edited version of "Lust, Caution" that was about 11 minutes shorter than the 157-minute version that is showing in the United States, said Anna Ng, Malaysia's general manager for Buena Vista Columbia TriStar.

Malaysia's censorship board cut nearly 3 more minutes and rated the movie "18PL" -- which bars viewers under 18 -- before its September 27 release, Ng said.

Lee "is aware of the censorship," Ng said. "He understands the markets. He respects that different territories have different issues."

"Lust, Caution" has grossed about 300,000 ringgit (US$88,000) from 16 Malaysian screens in seven days, which means that more than 30,000 people have watched it, Ng said.

"It's respectable for this genre," Ng said. "We're happy with the response."

Censorship board officials could not immediately be reached.

Lee's previous movie, the gay romance "Brokeback Mountain," was not even shown in Malaysia because distributors believed its themes would not clear censors in the country.

"Lust, Caution," which features Hong Kong star Tony Leung Chiu-wai, recently received the top Golden Lion prize at the Venice Film Festival.

Filmed partly in Malaysia, it is based on a short story by famed Chinese writer Eileen Chang about a group of patriotic students who plot to assassinate the intelligence chief in the Japanese-backed Chinese government during World War II.