Fight Club (Movie)

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    Hundreds of Readers Told Us Their Favorite 1999 Movies. Which Came Out on Top?

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    In a memorable year for film, there were recommendations of blockbusters, tender dramas and coming-of-age-tales. But one title stood out from the rest.A quarter-century later, the residual energy of 1999 cinema lingers. The Class of 1999 series — our class project, so to say — took form as a retrospective, sifting through films and moments that inspired a generation at the dawn of a new millennium.It dissected the revolutionary power of “The Matrix” and “The Blair Witch Project,” which manipulated our minds into believing what we saw was real. It examined legacies, in conversation with Haley Joel Osment and the “risky stunts, not risky roles” ethos of Tom Cruise. In essence, the last year of the ’90s had earned itself the title of “the year of uncertainty,” at least according to Wesley Morris.As for myself, I’d define 1999 through the stylistic lens of “SLC Punk,” “American Movie” and “Girl, Interrupted.” (Passionate and a bit misdirected; gritty and a bit manic.) When our film staff writers and critics made their list of favorite films from 1999, we of course had to ask New York Times readers to weigh in on their favorite movie of the year — a question that spawned more than a thousand submissions (almost) overnight.“The Matrix” was mentioned nearly twice as often as any other film. “Fight Club,” “Office Space,” “American Beauty” and “Magnolia” followed suit, in that order. (“American Beauty,” directed by Sam Mendes, won the Oscar for best picture.)Many readers sent us lists, unable to choose just one film, while others gave an elaborate and detailed retelling of a first viewing. Here’s a sampling of what our readers picked, covering everything from teenage escapades to heart-racing thrills to gut-wrenching dramas.‘The Matrix’ Is EverywhereMike Ruddell of New York:By 2024, “The Matrix” is feeling more relevant (and plausible!) by the day, thanks in part to our obsession/tension with breeding ever more capable A.I., our cultural fixation on antihero hackers and leakers, our ongoing destruction of the planet, and our weirdly brat green digital culture. At this point only the phones feel dated.But that’s not what makes this a good movie. “The Matrix” is the best movie of 1999 because of the insanely inventive plot (or conceit?), the thesis-worthy philosophical themes, the kick-ass mishmash of Wing Chun, jujitsu, cyberpunk, shoot-em-up action, and C.G.I. “bullet time” (a term coined thanks to the film), the most “1999” film anyone could possibly think up. As Gen Z would say, “The Matrix” is a vibe.I still get an adrenaline rush from the closing scene when Neo, fresh off his obliteration of the Agents, puts on his shades, looks to the sky, and FLIES.Neeraj Gupta of London:Growing up in India, on a diet of Bollywood movies, “The Matrix” was the first English film that I had watched in a cinema. I distinctly remember being wowed by the plot and coming home to think if all of us are actually living in the Matrix. To this day, I can’t shake that feeling!It is a cult classic with scenes and props etched in my memory, from the long black leather coats to Morpheus’s frame less glasses, and of course Neo’s gravity defying bullet dodge. A movie that made a lasting impact on me.Dylan Feldpausch of Chicago:It epitomizes the alienation of modernity through a (literally and figuratively) subterranean queer lens. I remember watching it as a kid and being inexplicably drawn to its aesthetic, and only as an adult realizing how important it was to me as a nonbinary person — particularly the idea that you can imagine yourself into any identity no matter how inaccessible it may seem to you, and that your power in that identity comes from a strong commitment to your truest self.Paddy Free of Auckland, New Zealand:I was 10 in 1977, the perfect age for “Star Wars.” Walking out of “The Matrix,” I felt the feelings I’d hoped to feel walking into “The Phantom Menace.” 1999’s Great Disappointment and 1999’s Great Redeemer.Drama. Drama. Drama.Kevin Hengehold of Seal Beach, Calif., on “The Sixth Sense”:Not your typical ghost story, and I still watch it whenever I see it on. Fantastic in-depth acting led by Haley Joel Osment along with Toni Collette and Bruce Willis. “I see dead people” is a line that will live on long after I’m gone … and I’m not planning on coming back to watch my wedding video …Katie Robleski of Milwaukee on “Magnolia”:I’m glued to the screen in a dark theater as Aimee Mann’s “Save Me” swells. John C. Reilly quietly delivers his monologue until Melora Walters breaks the fourth wall (and her gut-wrenching pain) with that hopeful smile — cut to black (and to my tears rolling with the credits). Perhaps being 19 made all the difference, but everything about “Magnolia” — Tom Cruise, full cast breaking into song, raining frogs, and 3-hour runtime included — completely changed cinema for me. I miss that era.Zac Oldenburg of San Francisco on “Eyes Wide Shut”:My memories started on a 4:3 aspect ratio DVD, but the film became a revelation once I saw it in a theater. Kidman is alluring on every level, and Cruise gives himself over to Kubrick in a way he has never done again for a director. It’s just an incredible film that sends Kubrick out on a high note.Alex Arroyo of Littleton, Colo. on “Fight Club”:I remember I was in junior high, a group of friends and I going to watch it in theaters. We were so pumped afterward, we just wanted to start our own fight club … we never did though; we were kinda nerds. But the idea of someone being so over all of the daily, typical BS and willing to do something to change it all, gave me hope and kinda made me feel like a badass for watching it.Dana Jacoby of Cotati, Calif., on “American Beauty”:We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Fight Club’ Ending Is Restored in China After Censorship Outcry

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      Last month, viewers noticed that the ending of the 1999 film had been replaced with a pro-government message. Now the ending is back, and the message is gone.Some viewers who watched “Fight Club” on a popular Chinese streaming platform last month noticed that its violent, dystopian ending had been cut, and replaced with a message promoting law and order.Now the original ending is back on the platform — and the pro-government message is gone. The only parts still missing from the Chinese version of the 1999 cult classic appear to be nude sex scenes.The changes, which drew international attention, were spotted in recent weeks by people watching the film on a streaming platform owned by Tencent, a giant Chinese entertainment company.Tencent has now restored 11 of the 12 minutes that were previously cut, The Hollywood Reporter said in an article this week. The New York Times confirmed that about one minute remains missing, mostly consisting of sex scenes involving the characters played by Brad Pitt and Helena Bonham Carter. “Fight Club” is not the first foreign movie in which the version made for the Chinese mainland audience differs from the original. The Chinese version of the 2018 Queen biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody,” for example, cut references to the singer Freddie Mercury’s sexuality.Still, it’s unusual for foreign movies in China to include the pro-government written codas; those are typically reserved for Chinese-language films. It is also rare for people who censor movies for the Chinese market to undo their own handiwork.It was not immediately clear on Tuesday why, or precisely when, the original ending of “Fight Club” was restored on Tencent — nor why the ending had been altered in the first place.Kenny Ng, a film professor at Hong Kong Baptist University, said in an interview that he believed the changes to the ending last month were a result of self-censorship by Tencent. But he said it was also possible that the film’s Chinese distributor made the changes.Tencent declined to comment. A spokeswoman for the film’s Chinese distributor, Pacific Audio and Video, said that the company was not involved in editing the Tencent version of the film and had merely applied for clearance to have it released in China.New Regency, the Los Angeles-based company that produced “Fight Club,” did not immediately respond to requests for comment.The rules governing what movies released in mainland China may or may not include have grown more stringent over the last few years.In the past, the rules were set by a division of China’s State Council, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television. But since 2017, censorship has been governed by a comparatively stricter rule, the Film Industry Promotion Law, which gives the authorities more latitude to define perceived offenses.The law says that films shown in China may not include anything that jeopardizes the country’s unity, sovereignty, public order or “social ethics.” Also banned is anything that disrupts social stability, propagates superstition or defames cultural traditions.Five Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. “The Power of the Dog”: More

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      The Ending of 'Fight Club' Was Censored in China

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      The 1999 cult classic starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton is not the only foreign film to be altered for audiences in mainland China.When viewers watch “Fight Club” on a popular Chinese streaming platform, most of the film looks exactly as it did when it was released in 1999 — except for the apocalyptic ending.Instead of a successful plot to destroy a series of buildings, the Chinese version of the cult classic starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton ends with a note to viewers saying that the police “rapidly figured out the whole plan and arrested all criminals, successfully preventing the bomb from exploding.”As for Pitt’s character, the note says, he was sent to an asylum and later discharged. (Never mind that the character is actually a figment of Norton’s character’s imagination.)The censored ending was discovered recently by fans in China who watched it on a streaming platform owned by Tencent, a giant Chinese entertainment company. It has led to criticism from Human Rights Watch and chatter on social media in China and the United States.“This is SUPER wonderful! Everyone gets a happy ending in China!” Chuck Palahniuk, the writer whose 1996 novel inspired the film, wrote sarcastically on Twitter. But he also said in an interview with TMZ on Wednesday that the censored ending was closer to the ending of his book, in which the bomb malfunctions and the narrator wakes up in a mental hospital after shooting himself.It is unclear whether the changes to the film’s Chinese edition were the result of self-censorship, a government order or a combination of the two. The film’s production company, based in Los Angeles, did not respond to requests for comment, and its Chinese distributor declined to comment.But this much is clear: “Fight Club” is not the first movie where the version made for the Chinese mainland audience differed from the original. Over the years, a number of Western movies and television shows — including “Men in Black 3,” “Cloud Atlas” and “Pirates of the Caribbean” — have been altered before they were shown to local audiences.A ‘reluctant compromise’To some extent, recent censorship echoes how the mainland Chinese authorities once demanded changes to movies from Hong Kong, the former British colony that was promised a high degree of autonomy when it returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.Hong Kong’s golden age of cinema included Bruce Lee kung fu films and Wong Kar-wai dramas, and, for years, local production companies there would export films to Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and other countries in the region.But when those international sales were battered by a 1997 financial crisis in East Asia, Hong Kong production houses began looking to mainland China as their main source of overseas revenue. As a price of admission, they often agreed to produce alternate versions of their movies to suit local censorship requirements.“When exploitation of the new mainland market becomes a matter of life and death, such a reluctant compromise with market entry limitations is totally understandable as a measure of expediency,” the scholar Hilary Hongjin He wrote in a 2010 study of Hong Kong cinema in the Chinese mainland.Early censorshipAn early example of such censorship is “The Inescapable Snare,” a re-edited version of “Naked Ambition,” a 2003 Hong Kong film about the local sex industry. The mainland version adds a plot twist in which Hong Kong police officers team up with Beijing’s Ministry of Public Security to crack down on pornography and prostitution.Other Hong Kong films were edited for audiences in Southeast Asia, a region where governments and film audiences tend to be socially conservative. Notably, the directors of “Infernal Affairs,” a 2002 crime drama, produced an alternate version for the Malaysian market in which a criminal who has infiltrated the Hong Kong Police Force is apprehended after murdering an undercover officer.“Liu Jianming, we have found out that you are a spy for the mafia,” a policeman tells the criminal in the alternate ending, moments after Liu kills the undercover officer in the elevator of an office tower. “You are arrested.”In the original version, Liu rides the elevator to the ground floor and leaves the building.Pro-government codasToday, Hong Kong’s world-famous film scene has become the latest form of expression to be censored, since Beijing imposed a national security law on the territory in 2020. The Hong Kong government has been cracking down on documentaries and independent productions that it fears could glamorize the pro-democracy protests that roiled the city in 2019.Five Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. “The Power of the Dog”: More