What happens at the end of Seven Years in Tibet? It was enough to get the film banned in China

Harrer leaves Lhasa in 1951 after the Dalai Lama's enthronement, returns to Austria, and is rejected by the son he's never met. He leaves behind the music box the Dalai Lama gave him. A time jump shows the two of them climbing together. Then four lines of text.

The last act in Lhasa

The Battle of Chamdo in 1950 goes badly. Ngawang Jigme (BD Wong) surrenders and destroys the Tibetan ammunition dump, and Kungo Tsarong later tells Harrer that with those weapons the guerrillas could have held the passes for months. Harrer confronts Jigme, returns the jacket Jigme gave him as a gift — a serious insult in the local custom — and throws him to the ground.

He begs the Dalai Lama to leave. The Dalai Lama won't abandon his people, and tells Harrer to go home and be a father instead.

The reunion in Austria

Harrer's ex-wife Ingrid and her new husband barely recognise him. Rolf, the son who once wrote to say Harrer wasn't his father, refuses to come out and meet him. Harrer leaves the music box, and the boy's curiosity does the rest. Years on, the two are shown mountaineering together.

The title cards

The film doesn't end on the climb. It ends on text.

The closing cards state that one million Tibetans died as a result of the occupation and that "six thousand monasteries were destroyed."

The next card notes the Dalai Lama's flight to India in 1959 and his Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.

What the ban involved

• The condemnation — China objected to the depiction of its military officers and to the film's treatment of the 14th Dalai Lama.
• The studio — every future Sony film was barred from Chinese release. Sony was allowed back in 1998.
• The people — Annaud, Pitt, and David Thewlis were banned from entering the country.
• The shoot — after pressure on India, including reported threats to cut the set's electricity, production moved from Ladakh to Argentina. Two crews secretly filmed around 20 minutes in Tibet; the rest was shot in Nepal, Austria, and Canada.
• The thaw — Annaud chaired the Shanghai International Film Festival jury in 2012; Pitt visited China in 2014 and 2016.

Made for $70 million, the film took $131.5 million worldwide without ever screening in China.

For the record: the production's other problem came from Hamburg, not Beijing. Four months before release, the German magazine Stern reported that the real Harrer had been a sergeant in the SS — news to the cast and crew. Annaud added lines to the film accordingly.