A Chinese release of Fight Club tacks on a lame ending that undermines the film
Twenty years later people are still misunderstanding Fight Club
People have been getting Fight Club all wrong since its release in the fall of 1999. Based on Chuck Palahniuk’s 1996 novel, the film’s themes of anti-fascist, anti-consumerism, identity, and masculinity have been misinterpreted by critics for year. However, according to Vice, a recent online release on the Chinese streaming site Tencent Video reportedly features a tacked-on title card that may be the most egregious misunderstanding of the film to date.
I am Jack’s sense of curiosity.
In the original theatrical cut of Fight Club, Edward Norton’s Narrator and Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter) gaze out a high rise and hold hands as the buildings containing the major credit companies explode and crumble. Tyler Durden’s—Norton’s alter ego—plan to destroy consumerism has started: all credit card debt will disappear and everyone is going to start back at zero. Pretty cool ending, right? Certainly for anybody who had dodged calls from Capital One or MasterCard.
But in the new climax, a title card is added stating that the plan was foiled, his accomplices arrested, and Tyler Durden was sent to an asylum for treatment before being discharged from the hospital in 2012.