Just watched the film last night and thought it was hilarious.
But did anyone else have trouble keeping up with the subtitles at some parts of the film? I guess I’m not the fastest reader in the world, but I’ve watched other films with subtitles and had no problems.
Did anyone else find they were particularly fast?
I like the sequence where Goosehead flips out that one of the young gangsters mutters something under his breath. The gangsters line up and have to repeat the line, but it seems like none of the extras were actually prepped what line they have to say, and everyone screws up and some can't even speak Cantonese. Froggy, the guy in the green hair cracks up, which makes Stephen Chow crack up too.
Then a few moments later, when Chow thanks Karen Mok for saving his hand, she breaks into a hilarious karaoke number about heroism and friendship. (She later mentions getting a new karaoke machine so she must have practiced that song at home a lot LOL) Off to the side, Froggy is laughing uncontrollably again, whether by design or not is unclear. Two other guys are trying not to laugh so I guess Froggy actually did lose it.
"It's just not a movie that was made with a US audience in mind. And there's no reason it should have been - it was not released stateside like Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle were. Be that as it may, the English subtitles have been done by someone whose primary language is not English. And hey, that's not a bad thing. I'm sure that whoever did the subtitles did the best he or she could. Being a person who has tried to speak and write a foreign language myself, I can understand the task the translator had to take on. But the reality is this; for an American viewer who is counting on those subtitles to follow the story, a very literal and often times confusing translation is presented. I found myself constantly having to think "what does this actually mean?" For instance, does "fairy" really mean fairy? Or does it mean angel? Or does it mean ghost? Or (more likely) is there not a corresponding word in the English language that really conveys the true meaning conveyed in the movie's native language? By the time all of those thoughts run through one's head, a couple of other subtitles have already come and gone that you have not devoted that kind of thought to. In short, it can be a little hard to follow."
- Taken from someone's review, not mine.
And hey, that's not a bad thing. I'm sure that whoever did the subtitles did the best he or she could. Being a person who has tried to speak and write a foreign language myself, I can understand the task the translator had to take on.
Well I downloaded the movie, and the subtitles are pretty messed up in my version. Don't know if they are the same on the DVD. But the grammar and spelling was really wrong at times.
shareI think the original poster was talking about the speed of the subtitles, not the quality of the translation. I also had trouble keeping up. The dialogue in this film is just a little bit faster than most kung fu flicks - that just goes with Stephen Chow's frenzied style. I actually LIKE goofy translations in subtitles and dubbed tracks; I think that comes with the territory of being a kung fu movie nerd.
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I thought I'd write a comment, as I do understand Cantonese.
The problem with having subtitles for a Cantonese film is that the amount of information per syllable in Cantonese outstrips most languages. It's one of the main reasons why Spanish speaks always prefer dubbed films because there are just too many syllables to read in Spanish compared to most languages.
Back to this film... there were instances in the film where the Cantonese has just 3-4 'words', and in the English it required something 10 words. Cantonese is a very succinct language, so generally you don't enunciate much to say a lot.