China's 'Fight Club' ending closer to original book says author

Writer Chuck Palahniuk, on whose 1996 novel the movie was based, is not too concerned about the change. Photo: Handout

The new ending to the Chinese release of Fight Club in which the authorities win is actually closer to the original book, the author has said.

Film fans in China noticed this week that a streaming version of David Fincher's 1999 cult classic had been transformed to lose its anarchist finale.

Instead of Edward Norton's Narrator character blowing up buildings, a black screen and coda appears.

"The police rapidly figured out the whole plan and arrested all criminals, successfully preventing the bomb from exploding," it says.

While some film fans were outraged by the edit, blasting China's heavy hand, Chuck Palahniuk, on whose 1996 novel the movie was based, shrugged it off.

"The irony is that the way the Chinese have changed it, they have aligned the ending almost exactly with the ending of the book, as opposed to Fincher's ending, which was the more spectacular visual ending," Palahniuk told the TMZ website.

"So in a way, the Chinese brought the movie back to the book a little bit."

And, he added, the book has frequently been altered to more closely follow the plot of the film, which also starred Brad Pitt.

"A lot of my overseas publishers have edited the novel itself, so that the novel ends the way the movie ends," he said.

"So I've been dealing with this kind of revision for, like, 25 years." – AFP