MovieChat Forums > Amarelo Manga (2003) Discussion > Subtitles

Subtitles

posted 18 years ago by dricelo
4 replies | jump to latest

I'm Brazilian and watched this movie with subtitles in English. I know that captioned movies lose most of their values in many aspects. It's said here in Brazil that you basically have another masterpiece when you translate anything. Anyway, the point is that the subtitles were much too different from many of the lines uttered by the actors. Even simple idioms were badly translated, which might have caused a lot of misundestandings for those who don't know Portuguese and made a few dialogs pointless and tough to grasp.
Example:
"ham" in Portuguese means "presunto" and the word "presunto" also means "a corpse" or a "stiff" in English slang. The translation kept the word "ham" in English (which, of course, was impossible to figure out the idea of a corpse!!!)

Don't you agree that because the translation was so badly done, many of you may not have understood the message underlying the movie?

[–] unibek88 16 years ago

I caught that "ham" mistake, and it made me crack up. For a second I thought they left it like that for the comedic value, or I thought they were just speaking in 'code'.

Don't assume I share your predjudices.
www.myspace.com/_beka

[–] Kinematico 16 years ago

Not only the translation is bad but also the subtitles are huge, bold, yellow, non-removable and since the picture haven't been anamorphic enhanced the subtitles aren't 16x9 friendly neither.

Definitively some of the WORST subtitles I've ever seen on a DVD.

I am not brazilian, But I do understand portuguese quite well (better than english I think), I don't get several idioms typical from brazil, in particular those from Recife and Northeastern Brazil, anyway I'd have preferred to watch the movie without subtitles.

DVD's aren't supposed to be VHS tapes where the subtitles had to be burnt-in.

Good movie, awful DVD presentation.

[–] LordSurfBoard 16 years ago

great movie anyway.

i thought ham was just a funny slang, it was obvous what was referred to

Book'em Dano.

[–] DieStadtAmRandeDerEwigkeit 10 years ago

Dricelo, I wish I'd read your post before watching the film because I really struggled with what was going on. I'm German (sorry for just beating you in the World Cup, BTW ) and I lost the plot many, many times over. I manage with English, but I don't know their idioms or slang very well.

I might watch it again and see if I can pick up what's going on better.