Chinese Translations


Does anyone know where I can read the translations of the Chinese spoken in this movie? I've been searching but no luck.

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Much -- but not all -- of the Chinese dialogue in this movie was subtitled in the original film. I don't know where TCM has gotten this print that's missing all the subtitles but the DVD has them.

I can tell you what the Chinese was in a couple of scenes (from memory, so it may be slightly off).

For example, in the early scene where Wayne is being conveyed to the village by Mike Mazurki, the captain of the ferryboat sees the sampan moving in front of him and says, "The sampans are like flies today," and later, when he takes aim at Mazurki's, exclaims "I will swat this one myself!" But the teasing words spoken by the laughing crewmen after the captain misses aren't subtitled. (A Chinese friend of mine once translated the unsubtitled dialogue for me, years ago, and if I recall the crewman said something like, "You were lucky this time," but I may not remember that correctly.)

When the Communist Feng family gets back, the village fishermen nearby say, "The stupid Fengs are back from their Communist meeting," but the subsequent dialogue between old man Feng and his nephews isn't titled -- but you can pretty easily figure out the gist of what was being said.

On the other hand, the exchange between the two Chinese soldiers (James Hong and Victor Sen Yung) in Lauren Bacall's bedroom isn't subtitled. Again, you can infer the gist of what's being said. My Chinese friend confirmed that they were basically arguing about Sen Yung's stopping to fool with Bacall when they had orders to search for Captain Wilder (Wayne).

Hopes this helps a little.

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