Chinese fans of the US television series Game of Thrones are up in arms after an apparently heavily edited version of the show's fourth season aired on Sunday.

With pirate copies of the full version available on the internet, many Chinese viewers quickly realised how much of the programme had been cut out of state-run CCTV's broadcast, the South China Morning Post reports

"They've cut about a quarter of all the fight scenes, then a quarter of the nude scenes," one fan writes on the Weibo social network. "I guess that's okay if all you want to watch is a medieval European castle documentary." Meanwhile, another person says: "I estimate that they cut about 20 minutes. My first reaction was, 'This can't be!' Then my second reaction was, 'My God, what a mess.'"