MovieChat Forums > Qiu Ju da guan si (1993) Discussion > not in mandarin?

not in mandarin?

posted 20 years ago by nate-89
4 replies | jump to latest

i read something in an interview with zhang yimou last week where he says the professional actors in qiu ju had to learn to speak the local dialect so it wouldnt clash with the amateurs' difenghua. said it was shanxi

http://us.imdb.com/Sections/Languages/Shanxi/

or maybe shaanxi (i can look this week). it's been years since ive seen the movie, but does anyone know if this is really the case? i'll sink some time into researching it but the easiest way obviously is just to watch the film to determine whether or not it's mislisted in the database.

[–] grappa123 17 years ago

You're right. Some of the common words sound like Mandarin, (zuo - sit), but native speakers tell me it's in dialect, not Mandarin Chinese.

[–] nzshadow 16 years ago

it is in shaanxi province's dialect, but it is quite similar to Mandarin, also in the film they further mandarin-lized the dialect in pronunciation to make it easier to be understand by viewers from other parts of china.

btw, shaanxi is Zhang Yimou's hometown :D, he can speak it quite well, but for actors they had to take some time to practice lol

[–] cdube85 16 years ago

just to second that... the language is mandarin with a heavy local accent as a native speaker i wouldn't even go so far as to say it was the dialect. Compare it to appalatian drawl, hard to understand sometimes, but not unintelligible.

[–] patrick8828 16 years ago

China has countless dialects. Mandarin is based on Beijing dialect. Generally speaking, dialects in Northern China are very similar to Beijing dialect while the ones in Southern China are very different. Shanxi is in the Northwest of China so Shanxi dialect is very similar to Mandarin. Actors would have to practice speaking it but I think not much effort was needed.