Crimes left unpunished, even in the context of a feature film? The Chinese power does not hear it that way. Released on August 19 in Chinese theaters, the animated film The Minions 2: Once Upon a Time Gru saw its original version specially modified for the country so as to make order triumph over the misdeeds of the characters.
This prequel, fifth installment in the series Me, ugly and mean, recounts the youth of Gru, the super-villain of the franchise. But unlike the other international versions, the one for mainland China offers an alternative conclusion. The animated film sequences are unaltered, but a series of stills and commentary have been inserted at the end.
In the original film, Gru’s mentor, Will Karnage, an attempted robber, escapes justice after faking his death. But in the version broadcast in mainland China, the character is caught by the police and sentenced to 20 years in prison, where, calmed down, he pursues “his passion for acting” in “setting up a theater troupe”, underline end text. As for Gru, he has become a model father and is “back on the straight and narrow”, asserts the alternate ending, ignoring the reality of previous films in the franchise.
Television and film works, both Chinese and foreign, must go through a censorship committee before they can be broadcast in China. It is thus not the first time that a foreign film has been modified to conform to what the authorities present as more “healthy” values - in particular for productions intended for young audiences.
At the beginning of the year, the end of the cult film by David Fincher fight club (1999), with Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, had also been modified for its broadcast on the Chinese platform Tencent Video. Again, the police had thwarted the macabre plans of the protagonist, indicated a text at the end of the film.
The return to China, on a streaming platform, of the American TV series Friends in February had also caused the incomprehension of spectators, who had noticed that dialogues evoking the homosexuality of a character had been deleted. Re Minions 2 in mainland China, the origin of the decision to change the ending, which may have been made following a request from the censors or from the production, is still not clear.