MovieChat Forums > Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) Discussion > was the scene with the subtitles written...

was the scene with the subtitles written like that?


the story about Rory setting the guy on fire at the pub.

the subtitles are there to translate the British slang. did Ritchie always intend to have subtitles there or did he have to add them after filming, realizing that the scene's dialogue is particularly heavy on British slang? when released in the UK, did it have the subtitles?

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Yeah, it's the cockney slang that's impossible for some to translate. For instance, who would know that "chevy chase" means "face" ?

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Its pretty easy really. Its only rhyming. Chevy Chase = Face, Birds nest = chest, nuclear sub = pub.

Yorkshire is a place. Yorkshire is a state of mind.

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There was a similar scene in the movie Airplane from 1980. In one scene, the hostess tries to talk to two black passengers, but they speak in such heavy black jargon that she doesn't understand a word. Another passenger then helps them. That scene is subtitled, although the dialogue is already in English. It worked very well and was very funny.

I don't know if Guy Ritchie got the idea from that film, but it worked well in his film too. If I'm not mistaken, the Snatch DVD also has some sort of option for partial subtitles, which give the subtitles for One Punch Mickey's character only, whose dialogue also is impossible to understand.


Never be complete.

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You wouldn't Adam and Eve it.

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CRS usually isn't that straightforward. Mostly it's more like
"skin and bone" rhymes with "zone", therefore "zone" means "skin" (not "bone")
so it's almost like coded language.

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"skin and bone" rhymes with "zone", therefore "zone" means "skin" (not "bone")

No, no, it's nothing like this.

Skin and blister - Sister
Apples and pears - Stairs
Chevy Chase - Face
Frog and toad - Road

The last word always rhymes with the actual meaning. What you've described is totally incorrect. However the last word is often not actually spoken.

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Strangely in the German dubbed version, German subtitles appear, even though the spoken German is completely intelligible.

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Still the German is slang, though admittedly not as "far out" as Cockney rhyming slang.

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no , if you translate CRS to german , you dont get german slang you get a load of meaningless words.

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Its pretty easy really. Its only rhyming. Chevy Chase = Face, Birds nest = chest, nuclear sub = pub.


If you're not from London then cockney rhyming slang isn't always straight forward since the day to day slang you're used to is different.

The scene had subtitles in the UK to get the benefit and authenticity of the rhyming slag but subtitles for a broader UK audience.

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to answer OP - Yes
Yes there are subs in the uk realse
yes even english people need those subs for that scene

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