China restores original ‘Fight Club’ ending after censorship backlash

David Fincher’s 1999 cult classic, ‘Fight Club’ has been almost restored to its original form in China, after severe backlash about the country’s censorship of the film’s ending. 

Tencent Video, the Chinese streaming service where the film was available, has backtracked and restored most of the cuts made. Most importantly, the original ending of the movie is now viewable in China. 

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In the original version, Edward Norton’s character kills off his imagined alter ego, Tyler Durden, played by Brad Pitt. Then, the protagonist proceeds to watch explosions, orchestrated by him, taking down all financial institutions in the city. It marks the start of the anarchist theme that the film teases for a long time. 

Chinese censorship, which focuses on showing criminals being punished and balance restored to society, decided to alter this final sequence. Tencent removed the entire content at the end and replaced it with a text message reading, “The police rapidly figured out the whole plan and arrested all criminals, successfully preventing the bomb from exploding. After the trial, Tyler was sent to a lunatic asylum receiving psychological treatment”.

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The news of this alternate ending went viral and many criticized China’s censorship policies, while some pointed out the altered ending made the film seem nonsensical.

Ironically, author Chuck Palahniuk, whose novel serves as the source material for the film, weighed in and encouraged the Chinese version. Speaking to TMZ, he’d said “The irony is that the way the Chinese have changed it is they’ve aligned the ending almost exactly with the ending of the book, as opposed to Fincher’s ending, which was the more spectacular visual ending. So in a way, the Chinese brought the movie back to the book a little bit”. 

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In Palahniuk’s ending too the plan is foiled as the bomb malfunctions and the protagonist shoots themself in the head, only to wake up in a mental hospital believing he’s gone to heaven. 

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Regardless of the author’s stance, Tencent has deemed the backlash more troublesome than the movie’s ending. As such, they’ve restored 11 of the 12 minutes, originally removed from the film. The one minute that hasn’t made it to Chinese screens yet mostly includes sex scenes between Durden and Marla Singer, played by Helena Bonham Carter.