Censorship issues have once again emerged in the Chinese movie market as the ending of the new Minions movie has been changed in a bizarre way. The animated movie has been hugely successful since its release, but the version audiences in China will see is slightly different to those in the West.
China has very strict censorship regulations for any media released in the country. In the past, we have seen episodes of the comedy series Friends altered to remove any hints of homosexuality, and the thriller movie Fight Club also had its ending changed to negate the criminal activity depicted in the film. That change was ultimately reversed in the end, but now the censors have tweaked the latest instalment in the Despicable Me franchise.
You’d be forgiven for thinking the kids movie is fairly innocuous, but those in charge of censoring content for Chinese audiences clearly weren’t keen on the behaviour of Gru and his little yellow buddies, and decided to fix the ending.
Various posts and screenshots of the film have been shared on social media platform Weibo according to The Guardian, which appear to reveal the family movie had been amended to de-glamourise the criminal exploits of Gru.
Apparently, a message appears at the end of the movie stating Wild Knuckles, a character from the film, had been captured by police and was serving 20 years in jail. Funnily enough, that’s almost exactly what happened in the Fight Club alternate ending in China.
The censors also changed Gru’s journey, claiming he “returned to his family” and “his biggest accomplishment is being the father to his three girls.”
Surely audiences can be trusted not to be inspired by the criminal activity of cartoon characters, you would think. If you want to dive into more films that may or may not be suitable for children, check out our list of the best scary movies for kids.