In the films of the Middle Kingdom, the final word is not always that of the director.
The most subversive American classics are now paying the price, like
Fight Club
, David Fincher's film released in 1999 starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton.
Recently available on the Chinese SVOD platform Tencent Video, the feature film has been previously altered.
Not by watering down the violence of the film, or by crossing out this or that ambivalent passage, no.
But by “correcting” neither more nor less its final.
A rewrite that goes badly with Chinese moviegoers.
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And for good reason.
Instead of the beautiful and explosive sequence imagined by David Fincher to close
Fight Club
, the Chinese public can thus discover an astonishing epilogue card, absent from the original version of the film.
The text there recounts
“the rapid intervention of the police and the effective arrest of all the criminals, thus preventing the explosion of the bombs”
.
As for the main character, he is mentioned as having been sent to psychiatric treatment, where he will remain for several years.
A far less invigorating end than the series explosion and collapse of several buildings, headquarters of financial companies whose destruction accomplishes the deep anarchist purpose of Fincher's hero.
Anger of Chinese moviegoers
"What has been done on Tencent Video with
Fight Club
shows us that they are no longer content to censor scenes but are now also attacking the scenario"
, was indignant a user of the Chinese social network Weibo.
"It's a scandal"
, also commented a movie buff directly on the Tencent streaming platform.
The Chinese giant refused to comment on the censorship the film was subjected to, as did Disney, owner of 20th Century, which holds the rights to
Fight Club
.
It is therefore not yet certain which side of the Pacific the censorship was carried out.
Adapted from the eponymous novel by Chuck Palahniuk, the corrosive and violent
Fight Club
had greatly divided critics at the time of its release. Not at all convinced by its nihilistic and self-destructive material, the American critic Roger Ebert had in his time called the film
"fascist"
.
"Anarcho-nauseating, debecting and dangerous"
, for
Le Figaroscope
,
"sub-Nietzschean molasses"
for
Télérama
, the feature film has nevertheless become in the space of a few years a "cult film", both in Europe and in the United States. States than in the rest of the world. .
However, China exercises very strict control over foreign films shown on its territory, both in theaters and on its video-on-demand platforms. Some of the films authorized for release are thus regularly subject to censorship, like
Bohemian Rhapsody
, Bryan Singer's biopic on Freddie Mercury. Released in 2019 in the country, the production had been amputated by nearly three minutes of content referring in particular to the homosexuality of the singer. The special
Friends, the reunion
was also purged of scenes and performances by Lady Gaga, BTS and Justin Bieber, without further explanation. Finally, other feature films simply do not come out, as was also the case with the Disney film
The Eternals
, because of the political positions of the Chinese director Chloé Zhao.