Original 'Fight Club' Ending Restored in China After Censorship Backlash (hollywoodreporter.com) 86
Last month streamers in China discovered that Fight Club had arrived on streaming platform Tencent — but with an entirely new ending where local authorities "rapidly figured out the whole plan and arrested all criminals....."
But now there's been another round of changes, according to the Hollywood Reporter. "After widespread online backlash to clumsy censorship of the film's ending, Chinese streaming service Tencent Video backtracked in recent days and restored most of the cuts it had made." Crucially, Fight Club's complete ending is now viewable in full in China...
News of the cuts went viral around the world and sparked much debate and embarrassment on Chinese social media about local censorship practices.... [I]t would appear that the backlash has been deemed more troublesome than the fictional film's ending, as Tencent has now restored 11 of the 12 minutes it originally cut from the 137-minute movie. The minute still missing is mostly comprised of brief nude sex scenes between Brad Pitt's and Helena Bonham Carter's characters.
Insider reports that changing the original ending provoked comments like these on China's Twitter-like platform Weibo:
- "This has become a Chinese-only joke. Even dogs won't want to watch this."
- "This is exactly why, even if you have streaming platform subscriptions, you still have to watch pirated versions."
And it brought massive attention to China's history of changing movies, notes the Wrap since "word quickly spread across the globe, bringing embarrassment to the country," reports the Wrap: Censorship of American films and TV shows at the behest of Chinese officials has become common as Hollywood has made in-roads in the country over the past decade. Last year, an episode of "The Simpsons" in which the titular family visits China was removed from Disney+ in Hong Kong over a joke made in the film about the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 and the Chinese government's censorship of the event.
Even the South China Morning Post reported that Chuck Palahniuk, the author of the novel that inspired the film, "appeared to mock the move on Twitter. 'Everyone gets a happy ending in China!' he wrote..." Similar changes have been made to other films in China in the past. Nicolas Cage's 2005 crime film Lord of War had its final half-hour cut and replaced with text reading, "Yuri Orlov confessed all the crimes officially charged against him in court and was sentenced to life imprisonment in the end."
And another example from the Hollywood Reporter: After 20th Century Fox's Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody won multiple Oscars in the 2018, it was granted a theatrical release in China — but only after all mentions of Freddie Mercury's homosexuality were cut from the film.
But in this case a global popular outcry appears to have been too embarrasing to endure. According to the Hollywood Reporter now we even have an expected ending to the story of how China tried to censor Fight Club.
"Reversals of censorship actions are extremely rare within China's entertainment industry — but cuts to Hollywood movies are not."
But now there's been another round of changes, according to the Hollywood Reporter. "After widespread online backlash to clumsy censorship of the film's ending, Chinese streaming service Tencent Video backtracked in recent days and restored most of the cuts it had made." Crucially, Fight Club's complete ending is now viewable in full in China...
News of the cuts went viral around the world and sparked much debate and embarrassment on Chinese social media about local censorship practices.... [I]t would appear that the backlash has been deemed more troublesome than the fictional film's ending, as Tencent has now restored 11 of the 12 minutes it originally cut from the 137-minute movie. The minute still missing is mostly comprised of brief nude sex scenes between Brad Pitt's and Helena Bonham Carter's characters.
Insider reports that changing the original ending provoked comments like these on China's Twitter-like platform Weibo:
- "This has become a Chinese-only joke. Even dogs won't want to watch this."
- "This is exactly why, even if you have streaming platform subscriptions, you still have to watch pirated versions."
And it brought massive attention to China's history of changing movies, notes the Wrap since "word quickly spread across the globe, bringing embarrassment to the country," reports the Wrap: Censorship of American films and TV shows at the behest of Chinese officials has become common as Hollywood has made in-roads in the country over the past decade. Last year, an episode of "The Simpsons" in which the titular family visits China was removed from Disney+ in Hong Kong over a joke made in the film about the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 and the Chinese government's censorship of the event.
Even the South China Morning Post reported that Chuck Palahniuk, the author of the novel that inspired the film, "appeared to mock the move on Twitter. 'Everyone gets a happy ending in China!' he wrote..." Similar changes have been made to other films in China in the past. Nicolas Cage's 2005 crime film Lord of War had its final half-hour cut and replaced with text reading, "Yuri Orlov confessed all the crimes officially charged against him in court and was sentenced to life imprisonment in the end."
And another example from the Hollywood Reporter: After 20th Century Fox's Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody won multiple Oscars in the 2018, it was granted a theatrical release in China — but only after all mentions of Freddie Mercury's homosexuality were cut from the film.
But in this case a global popular outcry appears to have been too embarrasing to endure. According to the Hollywood Reporter now we even have an expected ending to the story of how China tried to censor Fight Club.
"Reversals of censorship actions are extremely rare within China's entertainment industry — but cuts to Hollywood movies are not."
China is botching the Olympics (Score:5, Interesting)
Cold food, terrible 'quarantine' hotels, and false positive tests are destroying Olympic athletes.
China's malevolent government is imploding on its own shortsighted posturing.
Re:China is botching the Olympics (Score:5, Insightful)
false positive tests make it easy to win at the bookie.
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“There’s an old joke - um two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of ‘em says, ‘Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.’ The other one says, ‘Yeah, I know; and such small portions.’”
Does that mean ... (Score:5, Funny)
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Like zoology-themed shows? Aren't those primarily relegated to south-of-the-border venues? I thought we covered this already [slashdot.org]...
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That would be good, however the Fight Club is not a direct comment about the CCP and Xi Jinping in particular.
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Chairman Xi Ping should be honoured to be compared to Winnie the Pooh. One of the greatest characters in children's literature.
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It's insult to pretend that all Chinese politics are solely about Xi.
Yes. But no, right?
Under the CCP, unless I'm mistaken, Xi Jinping is the state, and the state is Xi Jinping. No large group of people is ever fully homogeneous - no matter what the CCP says - so there is room for nuance in the discussion, but it's not unfair to lay a lot at the feet at Xi. My understanding is that the CCP wants everyone to think that he is infallible, his word inviolate, etc. Of course, that's impossible, but it's the official party line, isn't it?
Xi Jinping is a Chinese politician who has been serving as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) since 2012, and President of the People's Republic of China (PRC) since 2013. Xi has been the paramount leader of China, the most prominent political leader in China, since 2012.
The paramount leader - also named supreme leader - of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) is a term for the most prominent political leader in China.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Because the official party line is a lie/is impossible, the CCP can spin things however they want, whenever they want. What is attributable to Xi and what is not is nearly totally opaque and very hard to discern. The CCP I'm sure will attribute all good things to him (or perhaps the party) and attribute all bad things to rotten individuals in the CCP; the West; America; anyone and everything except Xi or the party as a whole.
It's such a farce. The official party line ostensibly precludes the possibility tha
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A.A. Milne's fabulous shows will be available again soon?
Japanese Olympic figure skater Yuzuru Hanyu is known for fans throwing Winnie the Pooh [time.com] toys onto the ice after his performances. I would have so loved to have seen that in this years olympics.
Strange hypocrisy (Score:5, Insightful)
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Give the guy a break. If he varies from the script, he'll be next off to the reeducation camp.
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This is not funny. And if you are debating for the sake of debating is not funny either. We are talking about real lives. If this is true it just means you do not value all life. If the modern world has created people who doesn't understand that killing population is wrong than faith must be lost in humanity.
Re: Strange hypocrisy (Score:1)
Wumao alert !!!
How are you getting past the Great Firewall, comrade ?
Did your "Oregonian" persona get canned ?
Re: Strange hypocrisy (Score:5, Insightful)
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To be fair, there is a tendency for a meme or a rhetoric to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It all depends on whether the powers that be think they can use it to further their own goals (which is being elected so they are interesting as targets for bribes).
As an example, and I don't say this with the intent of positioning myself on either side of that fence, take the way Nancy Pelosi uses LGBTHDTV+ and children as bullet points in her campaign. She isn't the first nor will she be the last to do so.
MANY p
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It's totally the case. We use to call them the "Three Ts" referring to some of the words you don't talk about without pissing off China. As you described, each of these has become a meme. Consider "free tibet" t-shirts. I have literally seen porn that says these words in the bottom corner... So now that these are no longer as effective, they change now to talking about Xinjiang.
PS. I literally live in a traditional Tibetan region.
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There is no "western" propaganda. We don't all get along well enough to agree on any topic for any length of time.
Well, yes and no. On the one hand your post is entirely on point. The situation with the Uyghurs is very much real and has been the subject of protests for... honestly I can't remember a time when I didn't see something about it, certainly in diverse countries that have nothing to do with each other.
But "western" propaganda absolutely does exist. E.g. the CIA identified Huawei as a credible security risk implementing backdoors in western telecom equipment. The British GCHQ, Australian ASIO, German BND and o
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We have independent verification, the "education camps" are visible on satellite imagery.
Uyghurs are mostly free to leave those areas, they don't need to escape. The point of it is to destroy their culture, and if they voluntarily disperse that serves the same purpose as the camps. That's why it's described as genocide - even though there are not mass murders like the Nazis did, the cultural identity and genetic lineage of the Uyghurs won't survive this.
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Yet there culture will still be better preserved than Native Americans. We certainly agree the education is an attempt to shift their culture but mainly in the sense that it's the most radical and traditional form of Islam in China. I have far more Muslim friends now living in China both expats and natives. Their religion is respected, so we must in due diligence as why it is that this population has been isolated as it has...
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There has been a renewed push against LGBTQ visibility too. While it remains decriminalized, there have been moves against showing effeminate men on TV and against the portrayal of same-sex couples in movies.
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Yes. Personally this is more troubling to me because the issue seems far more visible to those in China. Men in China have a lot of issues and they are probably more clear to me as an expat. There is a lot of outward anger that is a kind of xenophobia while still having a slight fascination. It's common to be at bars where girls will go up to foreigners to get their attention in front of their boyfriends then the outward anger of this is projected on the foreigner even if they would rather avoid the girl an
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men in China common do semi-feminine things like wear masks to protect their face
Like welding masks, grinding masks, and hockey masks? What's girlie about protecting your face?
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First hand accounts of what? Having their Koran's taken? Living in camps where they are educated in Chinese culture? Allowed labor to build modern work skills?
Last I checked, in America you aren't illegally allowed to keep your kids out of school, though home-school may be a bit of a gray area.
I live in Qinghai and I know Xinjiang people who regularly visit their homes. They have never once looked in my eyes like a holocaust survivor looks. Debates can be had on how "fair" things are for these cultures but
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ba ni ma ri. Yeah try to figure that one out you dick cause there aren't any translators that handle the subtle "Fuck you" of the dialect.
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There is no "western" propaganda.
You had me up until here, maybe the fact you don't believe in Western propaganda is because it works so well. Or maybe the OP meant American propaganda, since you know, the POTUS is apparently the leader of the free world and the USA is one of the chief shit-stirrers on the world stage.
Re: Strange hypocrisy (Score:5, Insightful)
You're addressing the strict version of genocide where it generally meant killing some large number of a class of people.
China in this case is being accused of the more expanded version where they're trying to change a culture w/o outright killing people / taking children away (afaik).
I'm not down w/ what China appears to be doing in these camps (and you'd think they'd be sensitive to "camps" given that even the Communist party now admits that the Cultural Revolution was not so great ), however i think the world is not being well served by calling so many things genocide because it waters down the term.
It's like "sexual assault" or "racism" in the US. They've been expanded so broadly that they hardly mean anything. Genocide isn't as far down the slide but it's also suffering dilution.
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Agreed. Such a definition is basically synonymous with expansionism. In this regard we could easily argue that America is the most genocidal country in modern terms but I would be one of the first to strongly disagree with such a position.
Likewise I am not down with what's happening in the camps but if we cannot start a reasonable dialog on it we will be tone death to the Chinese people which an article like this begins to better outline how the government is beholden to the will of it's people when enough
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Agreed. Such a definition is basically synonymous with expansionism. In this regard we could easily argue that America is the most genocidal country in modern terms but I would be one of the first to strongly disagree with such a position.
America is one of the most genocidal countries. Like that's not a particularly big controversy.
If anything, what China is doing is less bad, but still pretty bad.
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Agreed. Such a definition is basically synonymous with expansionism. In this regard we could easily argue that America is the most genocidal country in modern terms but I would be one of the first to strongly disagree with such a position.
America is one of the most genocidal countries. Like that's not a particularly big controversy.
If anything, what China is doing is less bad, but still pretty bad.
If you're comparing what the US did in past centuries to what China is doing now, you're engaging in false equivalency.
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You're addressing the strict version of genocide where it generally meant killing some large number of a class of people.
China in this case is being accused of the more expanded version where they're trying to change a culture w/o outright killing people / taking children away (afaik).
I'm not down w/ what China appears to be doing in these camps (and you'd think they'd be sensitive to "camps" given that even the Communist party now admits that the Cultural Revolution was not so great ), however i think the world is not being well served by calling so many things genocide because it waters down the term.
Cultural genocide would be an accurate description, they are a deliberate an organized attempt to eliminate the culture. I'd say the Canadian Residential School system [wikipedia.org] also qualified on that count.
It's like "sexual assault" or "racism" in the US. They've been expanded so broadly that they hardly mean anything. Genocide isn't as far down the slide but it's also suffering dilution.
Well I think it's an expanded awareness of other behaviours that cause harm. Racism used to mean an explicit and even official acknowledgement of race, like a 'whites only' sign outside a restaurant, and sexual assault was pretty much just forcible rape.
Now that we've mostly got people to acknowledge those are bad
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This also debunks that they are just being culturally assimilated because again, Han have fewer children than ethnic Chinese minorities.
How on earth does a growing population in Xinjiang debunk Chinese cultural genocide? Despite their best efforts it's not as if they can just snap their fingers and change all of the Uyghurs into Han Chinese over night.
Now the use of the term "genocide" for what's happening in China stems from media shortening "cultural genocide" to just plain old "genocide" which I agree is inaccurate but to say that cultural genocide is not happening when well over a million minorities who have committed nothing that would
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The CCP clearly is embarrassed about the Uyghurs though. They have been making sure everyone can see Uyghur athletes at the Olympics.
It's not really surprising though. The part of the government that handles film censorship, if indeed it even was the government and not just Tencent employees, and the part that handles the genocide of the Uyghurs are unlikely to have much overlap.
Seven Years in Tibet? (Score:2)
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Let them live in their perfect world! (Score:2)
The CCP's hold on Hollywood is incredible. (Score:5, Informative)
That is amazing, considering that every other member of the UN Security Council gets roasted in film on a regular basis, and China is the only one that is still explicitly and rigorously authoritarian.
Re:The CCP's hold on Hollywood is incredible. (Score:5, Insightful)
Richard Gere is still a non-entity in mainstream Hollywood for never backing down on his advocacy opposing China's occupation of Tibet.
China is a problem, but they wouldn't be nearly so large a problem if most Western corporations (including Hollywood) didn't subserviently kowtow whenever there's a chance to make just a bit more money. We didn't create that monster, but we sure as hell fed and nurtured it, and continue to do so.
It's still astounding to me that China is afforded Most Favored Nation trade status. History will look back and wonder how we could be so shortsighted.
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History will look back and wonder how we could be so shortsighted.
Yeah, I agree. But there was never any We about it. For some reason, "American" business as a whole generally doesn't like this country's values, and has been trying to do away with them ever since they were first articulated.
They sympathized with the British Empire, but saw a chance to be kings themselves rather than merely kneel to one. Sympathized with the Confederacy, but it was too disorganized to serve up the level of slavery they dreamed of inflicting on Americans. Sympathized with Nazi German
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For some reason, "American" business as a whole generally doesn't like this country's values, and has been trying to do away with them ever since they were first articulated.
Money accretes money. Every business owner thinks they're god's gift to mankind because they create jobs (11!1!!1) and provide services that people want. They nearly always want the government to just get out of the way and let them do anything they see fit, ignoring that they wouldn't be able to even have a business without the government's protections.
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No wonder guys like that admire the CCP: An organization which admits no distinction between itself and China, and meets the living reality of such distinctions with unhinged violence.
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Stands to reason. You don't bite the hand which feeds you.
I just grabbed a few movies at random:
Spiderman Far from home: China is the only foreign market to bring in 9 figures https://www.boxofficemojo.com/... [boxofficemojo.com]
The Matrix Resurections: Okay it was a failure but China still is second only to the USA in box office figures. Surprisingly did well in Japan too https://www.boxofficemojo.com/... [boxofficemojo.com]
Avengers: A couple of markets broke the 9 figure threshold, but the UK's number 3 spot with $115m pales in comparison to Ch
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It creates a vacuum that a motivated artist can exploit, given the right talent and the right timing.
And the impact of such a "truth bomb" would be lopsided. If the CCP has to bribe or threaten Hollywood every time such a product appeared on the radar, then it will start appearing more and more in order to seek more money. The financial incentive structure they created would be turned on its head very quick
c.f. US military saves the world (Score:2)
That is amazing, considering that every other member of the UN Security Council gets roasted in film on a regular basis, and China is the only one that is still explicitly and rigorously authoritarian.
To be fair, pretty much all military films benefit from the support of the US military (to provide locations, equipment etc), and this is no small reason why there are so many 'US military saves the world' movies out there. I mean, pretty much any movie outside of historical drama with the US military in it involves them saving the world.
To an outsider this could easily be construed as US government propaganda, when really it's the same as the Chinese thing - which is that they pay the money/provide the equ
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But that dynamic is very different with the China relationship. Hollywoo
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..That is amazing, considering that every other member of the UN Security Council gets roasted in film on a regular basis,...
I guess I don't get out to movies much. Aside from Russia, I don't recall any other members of the Security Council [un.org] being portrayed as the villain lately. Oh, I guess there was the Alamo movie which portrayed a member as the villain, but that was set a century before the UN was founded, so I don't know if that counts. Have I been missing any good movies roasting the other members?
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Someone taught only by movies would be incredulous that China's government ranks significantly worse than Mexico on corruption
Interesting indeed. This must be the first time... (Score:4, Interesting)
... that China actually rolled back governmentally enforced changes in a foreign movie after public criticism.
For me, that's the real news here, and they're not bad news, either.
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This only serves as commentary to GOP actions: (Score:1)
Re:This only serves as commentary to GOP actions: (Score:4, Interesting)
...In that the Hollywood liberals are trying to impede upon fascist/GOP ideas.
Washington Post review of the book “Red Carpet: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy [washingtonpost.com]”.
Mixed feelings (Score:2)
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Star Wars? Fast and Furious? (Score:4, Funny)
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Once you start reviewing many blockbusters you come to the conclusion that Western audiences like to root for the little guys and the outlaws.
Yeah, but we must be on our way past that. I mean how many thin blue line flags do you see at NASCAR events [washingtonpost.com], a sport which grew out of alcohol smuggling by bootleggers during prohibition? It was explicitly about sticking it to the man, but now the crowds are full of people who would love to get down on their faces and lick the man's boots.
how soon they forget (Score:2)
United States have their own censoring of movies, tv shows, anime from Europe and Asia in order to play in the US. However, I do not think they ever went as far as China and changed endings.
Chuck Palahniuk wasn't upset (Score:2)
Chuck Palahniuk said that the Chinese edits actually make the movie closer too the book and wasn't too upset about it.
He said that people were censoring his work all of the time but it wasn't "news" until the Chinese did it.
https://www.vanityfair.com/hol... [vanityfair.com]
Bungled by the CCP (Score:2)
If I was the oppressive censorship-happy CCP I wouldn't want this movie out there either, but I wouldn't try to chop of the ending and replace it with a line of text which takes a complete U turn from where the entire movie was leading. I'd just ban the movie.
Original 'Fight Club' Ending Restored in China... (Score:2)
Can we reshoot Red Dawn now? (Score:2)
There's a good article in the Wall Street Journal this past weekend on how MGM chose to kowtow to China on the remake of Red Dawn. In the original, nobody worried about offending the Soviets. Now, everybody is bending over to the Chinese government lest they be banned from that market. The Red Dawn remake was originally written and shot with China as the bad guy but MGM chose to modify the whole thing to make North Korea the bad guy to the point of hiring VFX people to replace every visual reference to C
Free Speech Makes Free People (Score:2)
Free Speech Makes Free People [youtube.com]
https://www.thefire.org/fire-l... [thefire.org]
His Name Was Robert Paulson (Score:1)