 When the film was picked up for U.S. distribution, there was a delay when  another company asked the distributor to change the films title so as to  avoid confusion with another film of the same name (hence the "Dead Alive"  title for the U.S. release). Director Peter Jackson (I) (qv) decided to use  the extra time to apply some additional spit and polish to the film,  resulting in a new cut approximately seven minutes shorter than the original  (97 minutes vs. 104 minutes). This cut premiered at the Toronto Film Festival  and was eventually released in the U.S. (along with an emasculated, 85