The theatrical release (in France likely other territories) was shortened by 12 minutes in the last reels. After the needle torture scene and Nikolai escapes, his struggling into the desert is missing, then a lot of scenes with the bushmen tribe are missing notably the healing scene, the flame thrower scene, and then Nikolai and Gao getting to know each other so it cuts directly to the gift of sandals (which makes little sense). All those scenes were restored on the VHS and laserdisc releases.