China Changes ‘Fight Club’ Ending to Make the Authorities Win

'Fight Club' directed by David Fincher stars Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter, and Edward Norton.

A still from Brad Pitt and Edward Norton-starrer Fight Club.

(Photo Courtesy: Twitter)

David Fincher’s Fight Club now has a new ending in China where the authorities win. The 1999 film originally ended with the narrator, played by Edward Norton realizing that he and Brad Pitt’s character Tyler Durden are the same. Durden is Norton’s imaginary alter ego and the narrator kills him off in the end.

In the film, Durden hatches a plan to tackle consumerism by destroying buildings that house credit card records, as part of his organisation Project Mayhem. In the closing sequence, the narator and his partner Marla (Helena Bonham Carter) watch as the buildings collapse around them

CNN Business accessed China’s version of Fight Club available on Tencent Video. The scene with the explosives has been removed and the film now ends with a plate informing the audience that the authorities arrived in time and foiled the plans and ‘Tyler was sent to a lunatic asylum’.

The caption reads, “Through the clue provided by Tyler, 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 receiving psychological treatment. He was discharged from the hospital in 2012."

This edit to a cult classic has triggered a flurry of reactions on social media with many fans criticising the move.

However, Chuck Palahniuk who wrote the novel ‘Fight Club’ on which the movie is based reacted to the edit and told TMZ, “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.”

To be noted, the book doesn’t end with authorities getting involved. Instead, Durden vanishes from the narrator’s mind and the bombs malfunction.