'Fight Club' has a new ending in China. And this time, the authorities win

[Celerity]

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/26/media/china-fight-club-ending-censorship-mic-intl-hnk/index.html



Hong Kong / Beijing (CNN Business)More than two decades after its release, "Fight Club" has been given a very different ending in China — and this time, the authorities win. Chinese fans of David Fincher's cult classic were enraged over the weekend when they noticed a version of the movie available on popular Chinese streaming platform Tencent Video completely removes its iconic ending. The finale of "Fight Club" shocked audiences when the film hit theatres in 1999.

In a massive twist, the narrator, played by Edward Norton, realizes that Brad Pitt's slick-talking Tyler Durden character is his imaginary alter ego, and kills him off. In the final scene, the narrator stands with his girlfriend, played by Helena Bonham Carter, as they watch explosives blow up a cluster of skyscrapers — all part of what was originally presented to the audience as Durden's plan to destroy consumerism by erasing bank and debt records. That amount of anarchy — and the government's inability to stop it — doesn't appear to have passed muster with China's notoriously strict censorship rules, though.

In the version available on Tencent Video, which CNN Business was able to view on the platform, the entire scene featuring the explosions has been cut out. Instead, it has been replaced with a caption explaining to audiences that the authorities arrived just in time to save the day. "Through the clue provided by Tyler, the police rapidly figured out the whole plan and arrested all criminals, successfully preventing the bomb from exploding," the caption reads. "After the trial, Tyler was sent to [a] lunatic asylum receiving psychological treatment. He was discharged from the hospital in 2012."



The new ending has infuriated some viewers. It wasn't clear when this version of the film appeared on Tencent Video, but screenshots of the edited film gained traction in China over the weekend, as commenters complained about the drastic alteration. "This is too ridiculous," wrote one person on Tencent Video's page for the movie. Another called the change "a pillar of shame in cinematic history." "No one wants to pay money to watch a classic that has been so ruined to such an extent," yet another person wrote on Douban, a movie review site.

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[Progress4ever]

1. Meh

It's an incel movie anyway.

[Celerity]

5. Why do you say that? I disagree.

[Progress4ever]

9. Chuck Palanuk

Google Chuck Palanuk who authored Fight Club and all his Trumpy bullshit. Fight Club reads like a Proud Boy manifesto.

[Celerity]

12. Disagree. Also, it is Palahniuk, and I suggest this interview, which puts paid to your attempts to

falsely cast him as a MAGAt. You are, IMHO, applying distorted, unbalanced, and oversimplified forms of ex post facto projection and pattern recognition to his literature to arrive at convenient sloganeering. Life and art are not direct, immutable pipelines to each other, and certainly there are far too many grey areas to draw such deterministic conclusions.

https://gen.medium.com/how-chuck-palahniuk-became-the-darling-of-the-alt-right-and-antifa-6c2fe8a2d616

[WhiskeyGrinder]

7. Lol it's not tho

[Earth-shine]

11. I'm not an incel. I'm happily married. Both my wife and I enjoyed that movie a few weeks ago. nt

[CrackityJones75]

2. Fuck China's Authoritarianism

[Beakybird]

4. Yup, Fuck Them. They won't even allow Winnie the Pooh!!!

[catsudon]

3. i saw this

what a shame... reminds me of an episode of family guy where russia changed the ending to rocky 4, except this is real...

i wonder if it it time for china to unban ghostbusters by removing all the ghosts.

[PoliticAverse]

6. First rule of Fight Club - Don't talk about the ending of Fight Club (China edition). n/t

[harumph]

8. China will be China

I find it amusing in a sardonic kind of way.

[JanMichael]

10. Try seeing what the book has to say about it.

In the book, I forget exactly the ending I read online today, the main character ends up unconscious and wakes up in a mental institution. So in a recent interview about the China issue the author said it's closer to the book ending than it was in the original film.

I didn't realize that the author had become a trump person. That's vomit inducing.

[Celerity]

14. He is not a Trumper ffs. See my post above.

[JanMichael]

15. Oh no I didn't read every reply to a OP! ffs yourself. But thanks!

[Celerity]

16. Thus my reply pointing out a rebuttal. And you did take the time to casually toss out a false smear.

[JanMichael]

17. Lighten up. The "ffs" wasn't necessary.

[Celerity]

18. I do apologise for that, it came from my frustration with another poster upthread, and was just

bad timing, as I had recently engaged with them claiming similar things.

Sorry.

[JanMichael]

19. No problem. Ever watch Snuff Box?

This is one of their weirdest scenes.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiOjMmNkNL1AhVdI0QIHa3cAYMQtwJ6BAgWEAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DPN74mnaqno4&usg=AOvVaw1B1yskIdlPh9wChCN28Njz

Cool Tool....I've used that in the past and people react funny when they hear it.

[Celerity]

20. Lol, I also saw this

[SYFROYH]

13. This is a good example of why so many zealously fight for 1A rights in the US.

Thank you 1A defenders.