The ending has been changed for the Chinese release of the cult film directed by David Fincher.
Fight Club, the 1999 cult movie directed by David Fincher and starring Edward Norton and Brad Pitt, was released on a digital platform in China and surprisingly had a different happy ending from the original movie.
In Fincher’s original fiction, hitherto unaltered around the world, the lead character (Edward Norton) frees himself from his influence by killing his split personality, Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). He then watches as the buildings begin to explode, along with his girlfriend Marla (Helena Bonham Carter). The end of the movie makes it clear that our hero was unable to stop Durden’s anarchist group and that “Project Mayhem” was a success.
But that’s not the case with a new version of the movie released in China. Tencent Video, a digital broadcasting platform operating in China, removed the explosion scene of the buildings at the end of the movie and added a text with the following statements: “Thanks to the tip provided by Tyler, the police quickly understood the whole plan and arrested all the criminals and successfully detonated the bomb. “After the trial, Tyler was sent to a mental institution for psychological treatment. He was discharged from the hospital in 2012.”
China, which strictly enforces the culture of law and order, also deals with the negative aspects of consumerism, a strictly Western philosophy. Given that Durden’s plan was to destroy this aspect of society, one might think that the Chinese would be content with this ending.
It is unclear who made this change. But Pacific Audio & Video Co., a division of state-owned media company Guandong TV, is thought to have licensed the film from 20th Century Fox. Disney, which bought Fox in 2019, did not respond to questions about the change. Director David Fincher also did not make a statement about the new ending of the film.
