Just got done trolling around the message boards over at the SPL entry at IMDB and discovered people complaining that the ending wasn't as "stunning" as I'd claimed it to be.
Knowing the tendency of even the most ardent fans to occasionally give in to the temptation to buy an early bootleg or download an early bittorrent, I just couldn't keep quiet over there, and in fact SPOILED the movie for those poor suckers who picked up the currently-available DVD but later retracted the spoiler since it really is too good to give away.
I haven't seen this disc, but I have it on good authority - hell, you can put two and two together from just reading forums - that it's a theatre-screen steal of the MAINLAND CHINESE PRINT. Living in the country that is now responsible for as much as 40% of the world's pirated movies, you can't help but do the math.
As most of you here already know, mainland censorship, at least as it applies to theatrical presentations, dictates that the hero must usually (if not always) succeed in his mission and the villain must pay for his crimes through the expected government-sanctioned methods (at least the ones they PUBLICLY sanction
). For evidence of this, one need look no further than the "mainland ending" for Andrew Lau's INFERNAL AFFAIRS, in which a group of heretofore-unseen investigators suddenly pops up to arrest villain Andy Lau as he steps off the elevator after the film's final twist. In the Hong Kong print, seen on screens and DVDs everywhere else (and even on legit mainland DVDs I'm told), he gets off the elevator scott-free with little more than a slightly guilty conscience.
The current bootleg disc of SPL, according to posters at IMDB, has the final Donnie/Sammo showdown ending with Donnie Yen, having just finished fighting, placing a glass on the bar to pour himself a drink. The film then cuts to Simon Yam's final scene on the beach with the little girl.
This is NOT the ending of SPL.
This mainland aberration deletes probably a good three minutes of the movie between those two scenes. Those three minutes contain EVERYTHING that makes the ending of SPL so ironic, so dark, and so beautiful.
So as a word or warning to those here who really want to see this incredible movie, Don't bother with any current DVDs or download any current bittorents (at least as of the time of writing): there's a very good chance this hatchet job is what you'll see. SPL hasn't even been released on DVD yet as I write this (it's currently Nov. 22). I'm sure now that it's playing HK theatres, bootlegs of the proper version will soon be filtering out, but do you really want to take the risk and end up with the version the mainland Chinese government deemed acceptable for its people? Or watch a "passable" non-anamorphic video presentation shot off a theatre screen with one- or two-channel "5.1" audio (which is exactly what it will be, at least until bootleggers can actually rip off the real DVD)? I don't.
This film deserves better, and it will get it I'm sure in the new year. Trust me, it's worth waiting...
