Director David Fincher shares his reaction to the censored Chinese cut of Fight Club. Based on Chuck Palahniuk’s novel of the same name, the 1999 film has become a cult classic beloved for its transgressive messaging, sardonic humor, and infamous twist ending. Fight Club follows a depressed insomniac (Edward Norton) who meets and ends up living with a magnetic soap salesman named Tyler (Brad Pitt). When the pair’s fight club morphs into an anti-consumerist, cult-like organization called Project Mayhem, the group’s aims escalate from underground sucker punches to acts of terrorism.
In January, it was reported that Fight Club’s ending had been significantly altered for the Chinese streaming site, Tencent Video. The censored ending doesn’t feature a shock of exploding buildings to the tune of the Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind?” Instead, a title card pops up that says the following: “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 [a] lunatic asylum receiving psychological treatment. He was discharged from the hospital in 2012.”
Now, Fincher has shared his response to Fight Club’s decidedly less explosive Chinese ending. In an interview with Empire, the director breaks down the nuts and bolts of the licensing deal, saying, “A company licensed the film from New Regency to show it in China, with a boilerplate [contract]: ‘You have to understand cuts may be made for censorship purposes.’” Fincher continues, “No-one said, ‘If we don’t like the ending, can we change it?’” More than anything, the filmmaker seemed puzzled at the company’s desire to license Fight Club in the first place. Read his full statement below:
“If you don’t like this story, why would you license this movie? It makes no sense to me when people go, ‘I think it would be good for our service if we had your title on it… we just want it to be a different movie.’ The fucking movie is 20 years old. It’s not like it had a reputation for being super cuddly.”
For all its nose bleeds, sex scenes, and chemical burns, calling Fight Club “not…super cuddly” is an understatement. Still, much more innocuous media has ended up on the cutting room floor at the hands of Chinese censors. Certain Friends storylines have been removed on Chinese streaming sites as well, not to mention films that have been banned entirely, like Brokeback Mountain. In Fincher’s estimation, changing the ending of Fight Club is tantamount to making it “a different movie” entirely.
Funnily enough, the Chinese cut of Fight Club more closely resembles the ending of the novel on which it’s based. At the end of the book, Jack is institutionalized. Writer Chuck Palahniuk also caught wind of the censored Chinese ending, and he sarcastically endorsed the happy ending. If, as Fincher suggests, the censors were in fact big fans of Fight Club the book, surely they recognize the irony of an authority figure stepping in to establish order.
Source: Empire