Chinese censors reportedly alter ending of latest Minions film

The ending of the recent animated cartoon movie Minions: The Rise of Gru has been amended for its domestic release in China, according to foreign reports such as Reuters.  

According to posts and screenshots from the movie shared on Weibo, the Chinese authorities amplified an addendum in which Wild Knuckles, a main character in the latest film, was caught by police and served 20 years in jail.

The revised version of the film ending showed that Gru and Wild Knuckles pleaded guilty and were jailed. Gru said in the revised movie that "returning to his family and his biggest accomplishment is being the father to his three girls". However, the international version of the film ends with Gru and Wild Knuckles, the story's two thief anti-heroes, riding off together after Wild Knuckles faked his own death to escape from authorities.

The change comes after Chinese censors edited a popular Hollywood film to make it more politically correct, resulting in some viewers questioning the changes. A check by MARKETING-INTERACTIVE saw numerous Chinese netizens noticing the change and commenting that the revised film is slightly longer than the original version, after the film launched in China on 19 August 2022.

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE has reached out to Universal Pictures for a statement.

According to social listening company Meltwater, the incident saw a total of 6.69k mentions across online platforms over the past seven days, with 4.24k unique mentions on Twitter. The incident has drawn 56% negative sentiments, mostly from Twitter, followed by Pinterest, Reddit and online forums. 

Meanwhile, Reuters also reported that DuSir, an online movie review publisher with 14.4 million followers on Weibo, stated that the Chinese version of the film runs one minute longer than the international version and questioned why the extra minute was needed. Huaxia Film Distribution Co and China Film Co, the film's distributors in China, did not respond to The Guardian for comment.  

Previously in February this year, Chinese streaming giant Tencent restored the original ending of a Hollywood movie after a censored version triggered a backlash. The original ending to the 1999 film Fight Club, starring Brad Pitt, involves scenes of explosions and relentless fighting. However, the edited Chinese version simply showed a message on screen saying the authorities won and saved the day, drawing heated discussions across social platforms. 

The film's original ending shows Norton's character killing his alter ego before bombs destroy buildings in a subversive plot to reorder society, according to the BBC. However, the Chinese version of the film removed all those scenes, and instead explained that the police foiled the plot, arrested the criminals and sent Durden to a 'lunatic asylum'.

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