Fight Club Gets A Happily Ever After Ending For Its Chinese Release

Fight Club, the cult classic film that briefly convinced an entire generation to give shirtless bare-knuckle boxing a go, has been released online in China through the streaming site Tencent Video. Like all western exports, the film has been edited so that it can gain approval from China's notoriously strict government and its censors.

Spoilers for a film that's two decades old, below

One of the major changes to Fight Club--which also starred the late Meat Loaf--occurs right at the end, as Tyler Durden's "death" has been removed and a happier conclusion has been added. If you forgot how the film ended, here's the clip of Edward Norton's nameless character standing next to Helena Bonham Carter's Marla Singer, with the two watching as numerous buildings are destroyed as part of Durden's plan to abolish consumerism. All to the tune of one of the best songs from alt-rock band The Pixies:

For the version released in China, the film cuts out the scene of the buildings exploding and adds on-screen text that reveals that Project Mayhem was successfully foiled by the cops, while Durden himself was captured and eventually sent to prison.

"Through the clues 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," the text reads, according to Collider.

Cuts like this to original source material are common with films that are edited to appease China's regulatory bodies. Tencent Video hasn't commented on whether this alteration of Fight Club was made because of a government order to do so or was done preemptively so that it could be approved. As for other films released in China, they need to submit a cut that avoids nudity, violence, and other intense material, to gain the right to be officially released on that side of the world.

Video games aren't exempt either from the long arm of China's government, as last year saw Tencent Games roll out a new initiative that forced players to submit to a digital face scan to verify their age, which is part of a campaign by China to curb video game addiction among minors.