Friends who like widescreen, but not subtitles on foreign films??? ARGH!! (1 Viewer)

[Tom Ryan]

So I was going to watch Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon the other week with a couple friends. I put it on with the Mandarin language track and English subtitles. They complained, we argued back and forth, and finally ended up not watching it!!! These are people who love widescreen. Does anyone else know anybody like this?

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Well, I will say this much about myself, the first time I watched 'CTHD' I watched the English dubbed track, the only reason I did that was beacause it was my first time, and I didn't want to take my eye's off the screen for a second and possibly miss some of those spectacular visuals and cinematography, but the next time I watched it was with the original Mandarin track with English subs.
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God bless the USA and the men and woman of our military and their families!

 

[Howard_A]

FWIW, the English dub of CTHD is excellent. This is an action film. You could use the National Weather Service automated voice to do the dubs and it wouldn't take much away from the movie. It's not like we're exploring deep character development and philosophical issues where delivery is more important.

 

[Tom Ryan]

Ack! Troglodytes have invaded my thread! Anything but the original language (unless too poor for listening) is unacceptable, just as anything but OAR is unacceptable. The English track on CTHD has actors with British accents, for Pete's sake! You completely destroy the actors' performances by dubbing them (even if you dub them with their own voices! Acting in a booth somewhere is different than doing it when you're actualling filming). The characters are the focus of the film, not the visuals. Don't get me wrong, the visuals are great too, but they aren't what you're supposed to be paying attention to the whole time.
-Tom
P.S. Howard, did we see the same film? JUST an action film? No character development or philosophical issues???? Maybe you concentrated on the visuals too much.
[Edited last by Tom Ryan on October 10, 2001 at 01:48 PM]

 

[Peter Ohlert]

One of my favorite foreign films is Run, Lola, Run (Lola Rennt). I saw it in the theater, and bought the DVD and never touched the english language track. I brought it over to a friend's place so he could see it. Unfortunately, he has like a 13" TV and watching the film w/ subtitles wasn't really feasible. My god, the english track on RLR is bad, evil, bad. It sounds like they're flatly reading through the script the first time, and just decided to tape that and stick it on the DVD. At least they kept the screams from Franke Potente . Had they dubbed that, I think I would have started shoving sharp pointy things into my ears to make the pain stop.
-Peter

 

[Jeff Kleist]

You know, I finally figured out why so many people think the CTHD dub is good. It's because other HK dubs are so utterly atrocious that this one seems like Shakespeare in comparison. IT'S A _BAD_ DUB!
And tell your friends they should start watching pan&scan, because if you want OAR, but not OSL, that's being hypocritial, because you're saying that one person's art is less worthy of respect than anothers
Jeff Kleist

 

[Rich Malloy]

While there really are no "good dubs", if you want to hear them done right (as opposed to the way its done on CTHD), then check out Cries and Whispers and Autumn Sonata. Bergman employed the same actors to contemporaneously loop an English languange version for the foreign markets, and did it even better than the Italians (IMO).
(Of course, the Italians looped just about everything - including the Italian language versions - but I never thought they did it particularly well.)

 

[Andrew W]

I don't understand the issue with English dubs for foreign films.
Most of the time the subtitles are severely abridged versions of the actual foreign language dialogue anyway.
My wife who knows some French notices this about a lot of English subtitled French movies.
They shorten the subtitles so that you can read it before the next line comes along.
A fully translated dub is going to provide more dialog than subtitles most of the time.
Do you advocate the idea that we should all learn Chinese to watch this film?
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Andrew in Austin

 

[ScottCC]

watching cthd with the original soundtrack sucks unless you can understand mandarin, i hate having to use subtitles. Also watching it with the poorly done english dub sucks for obvious reasons. So i really cant understand why this movie did well in the US.

 

[ScottCC]

watching cthd with the original soundtrack sucks unless you can understand mandarin, i hate having to use subtitles. Also watching it with the poorly done english dub sucks for obvious reasons. So i really cant understand why this movie did well in the US regardless of how well made the movie is or is not. It really was never targetted at the US audience

 

[Rich Malloy]

watching cthd with the original soundtrack sucks unless you can understand mandarin

And you guys thought the mainstreaming of DVD was a good thing.

 

[John Berggren]

I can't understand watching CTHD in anything but Widescreen with Mandarin soundtrack. And if I could learn all languages I would so as not to use the subtitles- but they are a necessary evil. The combination of the original actors voice performance and the subtitles for reference give me what I feel is a very good feel for the dialogue. I was present when the english track was used in my partner's fathers house, and I really had to leave so as not to damage my own enjoyment of the film. It was BAD.
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View SpaceDog's DVD Collection

 

[Sandra]

Dubbing is BAD. It's a question of education like with OAR, when you don't know any better, you don't care, then you try it and you prefer the real thing until you reach the point where you cannot stand the alteration anymore..because it's awful.
I know because I'm French. Which means I grew up with dubbed movies. and I didn't care. then I started trying to get the subtitled version on Canal+ (the only French channel which shows modern films in OSR at all). Then I moved to English speaking countries (1st Australia then England) and only watch original soundtracks. And I cannot for the life of me watch a dubbed movie again.
For one, it's another actor speaking, meaning another performance completely. The voice intonation is extremely important in a performance, just as much as the words, if not sometimes more. I can be in a different room, not knowing what's on TV but I can tell, just by the tones of voice and inflexions that it's a dubbed version, not an original language track; the same way that just by the composition, you can tell if a film is Pan&scan and not 4:3 OAR.
As for the changes in text because of subtitles. Yes, they don't translate everything..but neither does dubbing because it has to follow lips movements..meaning it actually can say something totally different for it to be 'in-sinc' (I noticed this MANY times watching trailers in english subtitled then seeing the film dubbed). Subtitles may omit nuances but won't say the opposite (I've seen that happen).
There's not that many movies not in English (Bollywood excepted) so there's no reason to make the effort of READING from time to time.
You're not convinced..put your favorite film on..and switch the sountrack to another language (if you understand a bit of it all the better). Now really listen to the voices...Get it?
Sandra

 

[Roland G]

I prefer the original language....even if the subtitels are not perfect...the original language track is still better, because emotions aren`t just in the text...they can be heard in the actors voice and even if you don`t have a single clue what exactly they are saying....you can hear the tone of their voice
I saw "Amelie" for example last week....i saw it in German and French..now the German dub was quite good because they actually succeeded in capturing the mood of the French track...so it wasn`t really bad...but believe me the US Trailer is just horrible. Amelie is a French film..in some sort of way the american accent and language just doesn`t fit the movie...believe me guys and watch "Amelie" with subtitels on !
and hey..i am from vienna..and since i can understand german and english..believe me..dubs are horrible horrible horrible...because you can`t really totally recreated everything...a lot of little sounds of the surroundings get lost...suddenly all the voices are very clear and just don`t mix with the background noises.
sorry for the aweful use of english

 

[Frank_Lee]

I disagree with the arguement that dubs somehow provide more dialogue than subtitles. While subtitles are limited by the amount of time that the lines are spoken, dubs are even more restrained in that most dubs try to match up with the movement of the character's mouth. So with dubs, you have to deal with coming up with dialogue that consists of a certain number of syllables. Often I've seen the meaning of lines changed in order to do so. In my opinion subtitles are the best compromise.

 

[Mick B]

Don't get me started.

 

[Jim Moore]

Members of this forum always refer to those that don't accept widescreen as "Joe Six-Pack." Well I got news for you, a large portion of Joe Six-Packers have accepted widescreen. In my eyes, this forum is filled with Joe Six-Packers and they include those members that dislike subtitles. Just my not so humble opinion.

 

[Martin G]

If you are watching a dub you are not watching the actual movie.
Its as simple as that.
The actors are a major part of any movie.
If you cut out half of what the actors are doing then you end up with a different movie.
Show some respect for the people who wrote the film and for the actors who acted in it. Watch it in the original language.

 

[rbirk]

I love original language. Fortunately most movies on DVD have that. Unfortunately Americans love dubbing as everything on TV like news etc is all dubbed. It drives me nuts. I just stopped watching news here (reading the newspaper) and watch my DVDs instead.
Ron Birk

 

[Dennis Kindig]

'Das Boot' is another film that suffers horribly from poor dubbing.
Most of the dubbing in this film was arranged so that the english words matched the actors' lip movements, and resulted in some of the dialogue being completely different from the original screenplay.
I do have to agree that sometimes I don't want to expend the effort it takes to pay the extra attention needed to follow subtitles.
Dennis