China is showing a different version of David Fincher’s 1999 film, ‘Fight Club’, which is now available there on Tencent Video. 

In the original, Edward Norton’s character confronts Brad Pitt’s Tyler Durden, after which we see Norton’s character standing next to Marla Singer, played by Helena Bonham Carter. They look at the financial institutions rigged with explosives. Even as the bombs go off, actualizing the protagonist’s anarchic plans, there is a moment of calm between the viewers as Norton’s character tells Marla that she met him at a very strange time in his life. 

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Now, in the Chinese version, this entire explosion is switched out with a title card that says the plans were foiled by the authorities. The card reads, “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 lunatic asylum [sic] receiving psychological treatment. He was discharged from the hospital in 2012”. 

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China has strict censorship laws and is on a constant lookout for any depictions that might disrupt the social order or impart any criminal sensibilities. They’d earlier censored the gay sex scenes in ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, which resulted in viewers seeing a deformed version of the movie. 

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At the time of ‘Fight Club’ releasing, it didn’t appear on Chinese screens since Brad Pitt’s films were banned in the country. This is due to the star’s 1997 drama ‘Seven Years in Tibet’, where Pitt’s character befriends the Dalai Lama a while after the Chinese invasion. This ban ended in 2016 after his part in ‘Allied’, which was partially Chinese financed. 

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An import executive spoke to Variety, explaining the issue, saying “It is not unusual for products to be modified in order to be compliant with national laws and regulations. This is true with many countries around the world. It is better to have 99.9% of the film shown legally to tens of millions of people than to not have it shown at all. I think it’s a win-win situation.”