Hurray! At the end of the movie, everything has worked out well for the supervillain Wild Knuckles and his apprentice Gru. They have defeated the dangerous enemies they battled for the Zodiac Stone, and Knuckles has escaped the police by faking his own death. Off they drive, in search of new adventures!

Or do they? The answer is yes, if you live in most parts of the world. But in China, Minions: The Rise of Gru has a very different ending. Knuckles, audiences are told, was recaptured by the police and sent to prison for 20 years. Gru went home to his family, where "his biggest accomplishment is being the father to his three girls".

This is by no means the only Hollywood film to be altered by China's censors. At the end of Fight Club, the original movie has the main character blow up several skyscrapers. But the version on China's streaming site Tencent Video finishes with a message that the police "rapidly figured out the whole plan and arrested all criminals, successfully preventing the bomb from exploding".

More often, though, scripts are changed by the filmmakers themselves. China, with the world's largest population¹, is a huge market, but the government only allows a few dozen foreign films to be released there each year. So producers bend over backwards to avoid anything that might annoy the authorities.

In Red Dawn, which imagines an invasion of the US, the enemy power was changed from China to North Korea - which involved digitally altering every flag that appeared in the film. In Skyfall, all the scenes showing James Bond fighting Chinese villains were removed from the Chinese version. In Doctor Strange, TibetChina conquered the country in 1950. It has been accused of trying to erase its culture, which is highly respected in the West. was replaced with Nepal as the scene of the main character's spiritual enlightenment.

Sometimes it is a question of flattering China rather than trying not to offend it. The 2010 remake of The Karate Kid was set in China rather than the US, and focused on kung fu - a Chinese martial art - instead of karate, which is Japanese. And although Mulan is based on a Mongolian legend, the recent Disney film made its heroine Han ChineseThe ethnicity of 92% of the Chinese population..

Disney has had trouble with the Chinese authorities before because it backed Kundun, a movie sympathetic to the Dalai Lama. Its 2018 film Christopher Robin was banned after Chinese filmgoers made fun of president Xi Jinping by comparing him to Winnie the Pooh.

Hollywood films have been altered for other countries too, but usually for different reasons. Extra scenes were added to the biopicShort for "biographical picture", meaning a film about someone's life. Lincoln² to explain the historical background for audiences unfamiliar with the hero's fight against slavery. With Inside Out, the producers worried that Japanese viewers would not understand the father's daydream about hockey, so changed the subject to soccer.

They also changed the scenes in which the main character, Riley, feels sick at the idea of eating broccoli. Knowing that Japanese children are generally fine with broccoli but hate green peppers, they substituted those instead.  

Yes: The Chinese government wants to project a particular view of the world which will keep the Communist Party in power. All self-respecting filmmakers should defend freedom of expression.  

No: The future of cinema is in the balance, with so many people preferring to stream films at home. China can play a key role in its survival, and changing scenes is a small price to pay.  

Or... Every filmmaker or writer needs to bear their audience in mind and avoid alienating them. Look at Charles Dickens, who changed the ending of Great Expectations to make it more upbeat.