In the unlikely event that you watched Minions: The Rise of Gru in both UK and Chinese cinemas, you'd have been treated to two different endings to the new film.
Indeed, in the Chinese version of the prequel, which explains the rise of Gru and how he came to be in the original Minions film, the ending appears to have been altered by censors.
As reported by the Daily Mail, viewers in China saw a post-credit sequence with Mandarin subtitles reading: "Gru eventually became one of the good guys" who was "dedicated to his family."
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Naturally, this ending goes against the entire storyline of the movie, which attempts to explain why Gru becomes the notorious villain that we all known from the Minions franchise.
Gru isn't the only character to have had his story arch changed by the Chinese government censors. Wild Knuckles, Gru's mischievous mentor, also goes from evading capture after faking his own death in the Western version, to being captured and imprisoned for 20 years in the version that Chinese audiences watch.
Further to this, Wild Knuckles then becomes a 'reformed man' in jail, helping fellow inmates by setting up a theatrical group for them.
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Minions: The Rise of Gru has performed well in China since its release last Friday, in light of separate accusations that the film's creators have tailored the plot specifically to appeal to growing markets.
As the Mail adds, the plot centres around a race to capture a 'zodiac stone' which has powers linked to the Chinese Zodiac, while some of the chase scenes take place in the Chinatown district of San Francisco.
With China accounting for an increasingly large share of global movie audiences, it would hardly be the first instance of Hollywood filmmakers trying to appease the country's famously strict ruling party.
David Fincher's 1999 cult classic 'Fight Club' - about a group of nihilistic anarchists seeking to topple civilisation - has also been the subject of Chinese government censorship.
When the gritty psychological thriller was uploaded to streaming platform Tencent Video in January, viewers watched police foil Tyler Durden's plot to achieve a global reset by blowing up the headquarters of the world's largest banks.
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Contrast this to the movie's original ending, which shows the bank buildings collapsing as explosives hidden in their basements are detonated.
Similarly, the highly anticipated return of US sitcom Friends to Chinese streaming platforms in February was met by anger from many Western viewers, who noticed that an LGBTQ plot-line was cut entirely from an episode.
According to Deadline, the latest Minions release debuted at number three on the Chinese box office, managing to generate over $3 million in revenue on the first day alone.
In doing so, it became Holllywood's most successful animated release in China since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Topics: TV and Film, China, Cinema, Politics, World News
Tom Fenton