China Changed the Ending of "Fight Club" So the Police "Win"

The alternative ending is a black screen with a text explanation.

Chinese streaming platform Tencent Video has changed the ending of the cult film Fight Club to a finale where police expose the main characters, thwart their plans and arrest them. This is reported by Hong Kong Free Press.

Chinese film fans noticed that the version of the film available on the platform has a reworked ending, where the main character, Edward Norton, defeats his imaginary alter ego and then watches several buildings explode, which means his plan to bring about the collapse of financial networks has succeeded.

Instead, this scene was cut for Chinese viewers and replaced with a black screen explaining that "police quickly figured out the whole plan and arrested all the criminals, successfully preventing the bomb explosion".

In addition, the imaginary Tyler Durden in the Chinese version of the film was sent to a psychiatric hospital and released after treatment.

Even the author of the novel on which the film is based, Chuck Palahniuk, reacted to these changes. On Twitter he sarcastically remarked that now everyone in China "got a happy ending".

This is not the first time Chinese censors have interfered with world-famous films. For example, in 2019 China removed several scenes from the film Bohemian Rhapsody that referred to the sexual orientation of musician Freddie Mercury.

Recently, Chinese authorities have intensified censorship, actively targeting any content related to pornography, drugs, violence, as well as dissidents.

The country has already banned "effeminate men" from television, tightened rules on "improper content" in TV programs, video games, online publications and so on.

In addition, the Chinese Ministry of Education has ordered the removal of literature glorifying Western ideas from junior and senior high school libraries. Chinese authorities believe that instead, schoolchildren should focus their attention on "Xi Jinping Thought", a collection of ideas by the general secretary of the Communist Party of China.