Edward Norton and Meat Loaf in Fight Club
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Edward Norton’s “Protagonist” character manages to get rid of his alter ego Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), thus ending his bizarre double life. “Where Is My Mind?” chimes in from the Pixies, and we watch one bank after another explode. This iconic scene ends the 1999 film Fight Club.
Even if the end can be interpreted in different ways, one reading of the film has now prevailed: with the destruction of the high-rise banks, consumer society is also smashed; and in anarchy there is room for something new to emerge.
In China, on the other hand, the message of the film doesn’t seem to go down so well. The Chinese streaming service Tencent Video only shows the film with an alternative ending. A black screen is displayed instead of the explosions. There you can read that the police could have thwarted the plan and caught all the criminals. This could have prevented the attacks.
The plot goes even further thanks to Chinese fantasy: after the trial, Tyler was sent to a psychiatric ward and cured of his imaginary alter ego. In 2012 he was discharged from the hospital.
In this representation, the “protagonist” can once again become a productive part of society. In a way, the original Fight Club ending is reversed.
Authorship is unclear
It’s not uncommon for Hollywood studios to release alternative cuts in hopes of defeating the Chinese censorship authorities. It is not yet clear whether the film was edited by the film’s producers or whether the Chinese authorities hand-ordered the new ending.
The alternative version caused great outrage among Chinese viewers, especially because many there have long known the original, even if it was a pirated copy.
And the novel by Chuck Palahniuk also offers another ending. Due to a bug, the bombs don’t explode. The narrator then shoots himself, but wakes up again in a hospital, where it is suggested to him that his plan will continue.