Chinese censors have changed the ending of another American film, and this time it’s an animated children’s movie. Fans noticed that the final scenes of “Minions: The Rise of Gru” were totally different from the original storyline.
Posts and screenshots of the updated version were shared to Weibo, a Chinese social media platform similar to Twitter, The Guardian reported. The new ending showed the antihero star of the film, Wild Knuckles, being caught by police and getting sent to jail for 20 years.
Wild Knuckles’ co-conspirator Gru was said to have “returned to his family” and “his biggest accomplishment is being the father to his three girls.”
The Hollywood version tells a different story. For the American release, Wild Knuckles fakes his own death and escapes law enforcement by disappearing.
Online movie reviewer DuSir shared the change with 14.4 million followers on Weibo and mentioned how the censored Chinese version is one minute longer than the original. “It’s only us who need special guidance and care, for fear that a cartoon will ‘corrupt’ us,” DuSir wrote in a review last weekend.
Some Hollywood movies never get released in China due to strict censorship laws, while others have certain scenes omitted or altered. Earlier this year, an edited version of “Fight Club” debuted on China’s streaming platform, Tencent Video.
The Daily Wire reported that the censored version of the 1999 cult classic movie cuts off before the bombs go off because police discover Edward Norton’s plan for anarchy. In the Chinese version, the screen fades to black and says: “The police rapidly figured out the whole plan and arrested all criminals, successfully preventing the bomb from exploding.”
Viewers criticized the new version, mocking the new ending in the comments. “Cheers to the great, great censorship,” one Tencent Video commenter said. Another agreed, “The cut is outrageous!”
However, author Chuck Palahniuk, the man who wrote the original novel on which David Fincher’s film version was based, had no qualms about China rewriting the end of his story.
Palahniuk tweeted a link to his Substack newsletter and said, “Have You Seen This S***? This is SUPER wonderful! Everyone gets a happy ending in China!”
Chinese censors frequently remove sexually explicit content from movies and never allow villains to outsmart law enforcement. If the movies are too egregious, they risk being banned outright in the communist country.