ruined by BAD translation/subtitl e



Asia the invincible? what the hell's that? the guy's surname is Dong Fang, which is a normal chinese surname, means "the east", he call himeself Bu Bai, coz he has not, did not, and thinks would not be defeated, so it means The Undefeated.

I know translation is a tough job, no matter how good you think you did, you still cannot transform all the meanings, undertones, indications in a culture sense. But not like this one! This is a very beautiful movie, all the lines, the scenes, the costumes, all very authenticly chinese, and stunning. And the poems recited in the movie, and the haunting song...hate to see all of these been ruined by the rediculous translantion.

You know, many things are just not meant to be translated, many words in chinese, they just can't be properly translated, such as "tian xia","qian kun", they are somewhat close to the meaning of "the world", but never is in the same sense of it.

So, for those who deminished the plot of the movie, I just wana tell you, it was based on one of the best selling Wuxia books in China, and the lines, they are very beautiful, in chinese. And for those who talked about the wire works, hello, this is a fantasy movie, and even with the wiring, have you ever seen body movements as beautiful as this in other movies, say the matrix? Wiring doesn't neccesary mean it's not googd KongFu, This movie has some of the best fight scenes I have ever seen, wiring is only a basic requirement for action fantasies, but the thing they did with the fight scene, that's art, man. You have to be a KongFu master and an artist at the same time to design, to creat such beautiful things.

In short, advice for people from America, Europe, Africa...no-china£¬If you wana have a better understanding of the movie, READ THE BOOK FIRST, and before that, LEARN SOME CHINESE! :)





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me in the other hand watched the dubbed version...great stunts...good film...annoying and ridiculous at times cuz it´s dubbed

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Yeah just watched the movie. And it really is a good movie (except for some slight bad effects in the beginning), but the dubbing was s o bad that immediatly after watching I went online and ordered a DVD with the original track. This is the one reason I like Tarantino is he does do a good job of convincing studios to not dub movies.

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i agree specially with the tarantino remark

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admiring~~
i am chinese,i am sorry for my poor english.
精彩!说的好!,没想到一个外国影评朋友对中国的文化研究的这么多!
这部电影也是我最喜欢的电影。我也是前阵子才看到 看完了后 想了好多 想了好久
因为东方不败(Asia the invincible)这个角色的遭遇和我的一段经历是那样的相似
心里不禁是万千感慨!看完了之后 我就知道 这部片子会一直留在我的硬盘里。
因为 除了刚才说的原因外 影片中 从人物角色精彩纷呈的演绎 到贯穿始终的让人动容的配乐...
都把我迷住了

......


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Just watched the movie for the first time tonight. Outlandish? Yes. Melodramatic? Yes. Entertaining? HELL YES!!! I really loved in in a guilty pleasure sort of way. However, the subtitles were pretty poor and made the storyline a little hard to follow. So I'm wondering:

Is there any version out on DVD that has good english subtitles?

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Afraid not. I'm betting you saw the Mei Ah version and their subtitles suck ass!



"Because anything else would be uncivilized."
-Hulk Hogan, Old Spice commercial

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Well obviously the Mei Ah DVD is dubbed badly since the one who did it is in all probability and Asian with limited knowledge of the english language. And the picture is very bad as well. I am waiting for a Region 1 Special Edition DVD, should one arrive, with approved features and newly written subtitles.

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The Mei Ah version sucked. Remastered my ass. my piss-poor quality VHS is better than that in certain scenes (fire in the background, etc.)
Luckily I understand Mandarin...but I have to agree that the english subtitles suck my ass. Why couldn't they just say "castrate" instead of "cut his dick off"?

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I know.

Another great Chinese movie ruined by the ridiculous translation.

Chinese version = Serious, so cool, funny at times,touching, deep and epic fantasy movie.

English version = Weird, over the top, LOL, weird again kung fu flick.

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is it just me, or does this movie seem ridiculous?

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I've only seen the dubbed version. It's a terrible movie.

As a fan of the original novel, and a fan of the Linghu Chong character (it's not "Ling Wei" as in the dubbed version that I saw), I was deeply offended by the butchery that is this movie.

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Actually, "Dong Fang" used in this context has a similar meaning to the term 'British Empire'. During that time, The Chinese only knew about the existence of Asia so 'Dong Fang' was used to mean "Asian Empire" similar to how in the 1800s, because most of the known world was ruled or colonized by Britain, we used the term "British Empire".

And the word 'Empire' implies a connotation of invincibility so the name, Asia the Invincible is a pretty accurate translation of 'Dong Fang'.

Maybe you should learn some Chinese before speaking out against others.

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[deleted]

"During that time, The Chinese only knew about the existence of Asia so 'Dong Fang' was used to mean "Asian Empire" similar to how in the 1800s"

According to historical records, there was trading between the Han Dynasty and the Roman Empire.

In the movie they are purchasing firearms from the dutch. Historically, firearms were purchased by the Ming Dynasty from the West.

The dynasty preceding the Ming Dynasty was the Yuan and they conquered their way into Europe.

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If you think the subtitles/ english dubbing is bad, you should see the german dubbed version. Its fvcking atrocious...not only do you hear the same 3 voice actors like in ANY OTHER chinese movie, but they actually dub all the fighting scenes too, with every scream and moaning...it sometimes sound like an porn dubbing (really the quality is not much above that).

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