Censors have changed the ending of the latest animated film Minions: The Rise of Gru for its release in China – sending one character to jail and the other back to his family.
Main points:
- Censors were placed on a scene in which a main character was caught by the police and imprisoned for 20 years
- The Chinese version of the film runs a minute longer than the international version to account for the changes
- China has also censored other big-name properties like Fight Club and Friends
The edit is another example of Chinese authorities altering a popular Hollywood film to make it more politically correct.
According to posts and stills from the film shared on Weibo, a social media platform similar to Twitter, censors were subjected to an attachment in which Wild Knuckles, a main character in the heist film, was caught by the police and given 20 years in prison. jail.
Gru, an associate of Wild Knuckles “returned to his family” and “his greatest achievement is being a father to his three daughters,” the footage showed.
In the international version, the film ends with Gru and Wild Knuckles, the story’s two thieving anti-heroes, running away together after Wild Knuckles faked his death to avoid capture by the authorities.
“Fear that a cartoon will corrupt us”
Many online commentators mocked the plug-in, saying it resembled a PowerPoint presentation.
DuSir, an online movie review publisher with 14.4 million followers on Weibo, noted that the Chinese version of the film is a minute longer than the international version and questioned why the extra minute was needed.
“We are the only ones who need special guidance and caution, for fear that a cartoon will ‘corrupt’ us,” DuSir wrote in an article published on Saturday.
Universal Pictures, the film’s US distributor, did not respond to a request for comment.
Huaxia Film Distribution and China Film, the film’s distributors in China, did not respond to a request for comment.
China sets a quota on the number of overseas films that can be shown in domestic cinemas.
Fight Club ending reset after mock changes
Many Hollywood films that are shown in the country have scenes omitted or changed.
Sometimes, some viewers note, the alternate endings of the films differ greatly from the original.
Last year, Chinese viewers of the 1999 film Fight Club noticed that the original ending, in which the protagonist and his alter ego blow up a cluster of skyscrapers, was not in the version shown on local streaming site Tencent Video.
Instead, an on-screen script said that the police “quickly figured out the whole plan and arrested all the criminals, successfully preventing the bomb from going off.”
The changes were widely derided among Chinese fans of the original film, and even prompted backlash from the film’s director and the author of the novel it was based on.
Tencent later restored the original ending.
ABC/Reuters
