One of my greatest pet peeves is having faceless editors make decisions about my viewing entertainment. I hate finding some 20-, 30-, 40-episode wuxia series micronized to 2-hour nonsense. I naively hoped that it was not a trend when the only version of Wind and Cloud with Vincent Zhao available to me was unrecognizable. To my horror, it is a trend: Book and Sword, Buddha’s Palm, The Legend of Hero, just to name a few. If I want to sit and watch five 45-minute episodes back-to-back, that’s my business. If I want to keep up with a ridiculous number of characters, who are editors to tell me I can’t? If I want to get dragged into multiple subplots, no one should stop me. Oh, but it’s not just the series. Why is it that years after declaring Fong Sai Yuk my favorite Jet Li film, I watch a Hong Kong version only to find a musical number? I like musical interludes, and I was robbed!!!
Really, why do the powers-that-be believe they know what English-speakers want? They are often wrong. Why not just give the people what they want? This is where globalization goes horribly awry.
High Yellow - Asian Popular Culture 
I hear ya. I remember buying the initial Tai Seng DVD of Donnie Yen’s Fist of Fury, which was a condensed version of the TV series, and it made absolutely no sense thanks to the re-editing.
I saw that, or more accurately, suffered through it. They did it with another series he was in too, I think. What are they thinking?