MovieChat Forums > The Fighting Seabees (1944) Discussion > Japanese language used in film

Japanese language used in film

posted 19 years ago by m-h-w-bullen
7 replies | jump to latest

Some years ago I heard a bit part actor tell a story about this film on the radio (in the U.K.)

He said that the director wanted to make the battle scenes more realistic by have the japanese characters (played by philippinos I believe) speaking japanese. Unfortunately no-one knew any japanese but someone had a brain wave: if they used the phrases 'I tie my shoe' and 'you tie your shoe', speaking them in a japanese style, it would effectively sound like japanese (try it!). And so this is what they did.

When this film was last on in the U.K I tried to watch it to see if this was really true. Unfortunately the film was so awful that I couldn't watch it right through and can't confirm the story (if there's a next time I'll record it and watch it in tolerable portions!).

It's a good story anyway.

[–] 19 years ago

[deleted]

[–] counterrevolutionary 17 years ago

I just watched this, and I don't think any of the Japanese spoke.

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Ratings: http://us.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=4996900&s=uservote&s=reverse_uservote

[–] vawlkee_2000 16 years ago

What a bloody shame that the film didn't "click" with you....."AWFUL?"....I think not amigo! I wonder about the accuracy of that "bit part actor" and his recollections......But that's another story.
Pretty much of the "japola" dialogue was gibberish. I remember a japola officer belting out some nonsense like: "Wankiti manto!" and "ko ki ko"......I have a background in the language and the stuff they were uttering in this film made no sense whatsoever.....
Taken out of context, who the hell cares whether it was accurate japanese or not, the film still kicks butt.

[–] ophelia4538 12 years ago

I think I heard okotu and other such gibberish. Some of the uncredited "Japanese" soldiers had Chinese surnames, and at least one other surname was Filipino.

The guys grinning those absurdly toothy smiles were, not coincidentally, the ones most in urgent need of cosmetic dentistry.

[–] Hippo9 10 years ago

One Japanese solider was speaking Spanish: "Pronto"
They probably just hired a bunch of Mexicans to play the Japanese.

[–] chrissso 7 years ago

I caught that pronto and thought what the hey?

[–] cowgoesmoo 14 years ago

Turner Classic Movies ran a special recently about Asian-American actors. During WWII, most anyone of Japanese ancestry was interned in camps, so bad guys in war movies set in the Pacific theater were usually portrayed by Chinese or Filipino actors. They said they'd speak in Chinese or Tagalog since no one likely knew what they were speaking anyway.

Similar to your observation, if you watch the movie "The Battle of the Bulge" listen to the German soldiers. No matter the situation, the actors portraying Germans use the same line ("Es kommt von da oben!").