It was 27 years ago that audiences were informed of rules that they have never forgotten. And yes, we’re going to break the first two now, in order to celebrate the release of its 4K restoration for the big screen.

David Fincher’s fourth film officially bombed at the box office upon release, only managing to recover around half if its $63 million budget back. But despite being a slow-burner for audiences, it has gone on to become a cult classic, and this re-release will no doubt increase the club’s fan base.

Feeling unsatisfied in his job working for an airline is the film‘s narrator (Edward Norton). It manifests itself through insomnia, which finds him seeking solace in a myriad of support groups, despite not suffering from any of the ailments or issues the groups are run for.

Then, on a flight for work, he finds himself sitting next to Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), an opinionated fellow, who criticises his lifestyle. Their conversation sticks with him, so he asks for his number to stay in touch.

It’s just as well he did so, as his apartment is soon in flames, and he needs a place to crash, so he calls Tyler and he obliges.

It is the start of an unusual friendship that changes both their lives forever.

The film is based on Chuck Palahniuk’s remarkable 1996 debut novel of the same name, which saw Fincher bring to life with heavyweight punch.

It covers a myriad of themes, all wrapped in the main one of the fragility of masculinity. It finds a man in a job he’s unhappy in, with a life he’s unhappy with, desperately in need of emotional connections.

Although the group meetings help, to a certain degree, he feels a mental numbness set in, that can only be rectified through violence, getting into fights to feel something real – pain.

It’s here that the notion of mental illness comes into play, during a time when the condition, within men especially, fell under the first two rules of Fight Club, in that you just didn’t talk about it.

It’s a thorough examination of the duality of man, and the extreme measures it can lead to, with that inner struggle within so many, unable to openly express how they feel.

It’s cited as a great role for Pitt, but nothing should be taken away from Norton, who gives a tour de force performance as a man on the edge of almost everything, in search of, above all, meaning in his life.

Fincher’s direction is a brutish masterpiece, a whirlwind of constant chaos throughout, with what feels like one man’s battle to break out of his mental purgatory, and taking plenty of blows along the way.

It could be construed, wrongly, as the poster film by the current toxic masculinity generation, where fighting can get you answers and money gets you everything, but the cold hard truth is that it’s the antithesis to it, as well as consumerism, seeing this behaviour as nothing more than a cry for help.

In fact, it’s probably more relevant now than it was on its release 27 years ago.

So find your power animal and break its rules and spread the word, that Fight Club has earned its right the hard way to be crowned a modern classic, making it a cinematic spectacle that takes some beating.