David Fincher’s cult classicFight Club, which is about a Narrator (Edward Norton) discovering and combating his dangerous, anarchist alter-ego (Brad Pitt), recently received a new ending on a Chinese streaming service, Tencent Video. Following the backlash, it appears the original Fight Club ending has now been restored by the Chinese streamer.
The original conclusion of Fight Club shows the destruction of the alter-ego but his plan of «total chaos» and «financial equilibrium» just beginning as the film's last frames display buildings exploding in front of the protagonist and his love interest (Helena Bonham Carter). China’s film censorship system demands that criminals always be punished for their crimes on-screen and their potential harm to society must be thwarted, so before Tencent Video could stream the 20th Century film, it would have to be edited to fit the censorship standards of the country.
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For fans of the 1999 classic, this would not do, and news of the changes quickly spread on social media, causing a huge backlash. The Hollywood Reporter now notes that Tencent Video, in response to the backlash and criticism, has restored the original Fight Club ending on its platform. While the streaming service has not commented on the incident, it is clear the platform feared the backlash more than the anarchistic end of the film. It seems, in this one instance, the right course of action was to break the first rule and talk about Fight Club.
The Chinese streaming platform and the edit received widespread criticism not only for censoring the film but for doing it in such a weak and awkward fashion. Tencent Video cut the original ending completely and replaced it
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