How Many Of You Are NOT Chinese?

I don't think subtitles take anything away from these films.


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I completely understand what you mean, i grew up in Italy, many comedies let's say spoke in Rome's slang will not going to be get by Italian from Venice or Naples let alone foreign people.
So i bet its pretty much the same thing.
Which makes me sad since i don't speak a word of any Chinese language and i love this movie, so i don't fully get it.

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I think the original poster was a bit off in his phrasing of his question leading to a possibly racist implication. But there is an observation here worth noting: The Cantonese dialog is really, really funny and when translated, a lot of the humour is lost.

Just for background, I am fluent in both Cantonese and English. I also know Mandarin, but not fluent.

In addition to non-Chinese speakers, I believe that non-Cantonese speaking Chinese (i.e. majority of the Chinese population) will not completely understand the humour contained in this film. There is just too much coloquial Cantonese dialogue in here that makes this film a laugh-a-minute.

For example, when a character says something in Cantonese, but uses proper Chinese vocabulary/grammar (vs. coloquial Cantonese) in an inappropriate context - that is funnier than hell. Proper Chinese spoken in Cantonese sounds incredibly stilted and unnatural - hence it's really funny in some situations. This is a very common device in Hong Kong comedies. But this shift is completely lost on a Mandarin speaker because all the spoken Cantonese is already translated into proper Chinese in the subtitles.

Anyway, I know many American/British/Indian ex-patriates raised in Hong Kong and are conversant in Cantonese who will COMPLETELY get the humor, and it matters not one bit that they are not Chinese.

Sp my thesis is that non-Cantonese speakers will only get a fraction of the humour in the dialogue. Race is irrelevant. Just my opinion. Thank goodness so much of the comedy is visual.

I can't speak for subtle nuances in the comedic timing of colloquial Cantonese, and nor do I care to. Unlike most people here, I much prefer my Kung Fu movies dubbed than subtitled. The OP appears to be culturally inept, as he's unable to comprehend why anyone who could not speak Chinese/Cantonese would find this film enjoyable, since the original dialogue would be lost on non-Cantonese speakers. What the OP doesn't understand is that because he does understand Cantonese, he does not understand the iconic humour of dubbed Kung Fu movies for an English-speaking audience.

The English dubbing of Kung Fu movies throughout the history of Hong Kong cinema is legendary. The 80s icon, Michael Winslow (verbal sound effects specialist of Police Academy fame), even parodied this in Police Academy with the line "Wanna' fight, huh? Fight me!" while moving his lips out of sync to the words, and became a well-known pop culture reference. The dubbing in Kung Fu movies is so absurdly obvious, since so much of it is lost in translation because of the nature of the genre, that it spawned its own form of comedy. It is a key reason why Hong Kong cinema found a niche market in the English-speaking world.

However, the same concept would never work for French cinema, or other European films. English-speaking audiences do not want to watch French films dubbed in English, as so much of English is rooted in French it's too recognisable for dubbing. It would be distracting. Cantonese or Mandarin, on the other hand, are so far removed from English that entire sentences will never match up. What might take a Cantonese expression 10 words, might take an English translation 5 words, and vice versa. It is so out of sync that it is no longer distracting. It becomes enjoyable. Once you let go of the conscious awareness of the obvious differences, the English dubbing becomes a part of the film itself, in a way that a person not extensively fluent in English from the grass roots up will never understand.

I've watched this film both dubbed and subtitled, and the dubbing beats the subtitled version hands down. Take, for instance, the character of 'The Beast', played by the legendary Leung Siu-lung. His dubbed English voice is well-suited. The guy who voiced him sounds truly menacing, and it fits well with the character once you take all these things into consideration from an English-speaking perspective. Once I heard his real voice in the subtitled version, his character seemed far less intimidating and he lost much of the impact he initially had on me in the dubbed version.

Physical comedy included, I don't actually regard this movie as a 'Comedy' categorically. To me, it's first and foremost a 'Kung Fu' movie, then a 'Martial Arts' movie, then an 'Action' movie, then a 'Revenge' movie... and then a 'Comedy'. And then maybe a 'Romance' movie. The Kung Fu in this film is not shot in such a way to be 'funny'. It's shot in a way to look visually impressive. There's obvious 'funny scenes', but the Kung Fu itself is not part of that humour. Unlike Jackie Chan, for example, who uses his environment to avoid using his Kung Fu, to great comic effect thanks largely to his background in stunt work, the Kung Fu in this film most certainly does not. It's all about the visual impact. While the physical and visual comedy, like the Road Runner scene, or the Axe Gang boss repeatedly slapping his sidekick is amusing, the Kung Fu extravaganza far outweighs the comedy elements for me. When I think of a comedy, this is not the kind of film I would automatically think of. That probably says a lot for the many levels on which this film can reach an audience.

There's many Chinese cultural references in this film that serve no interest to me, and while much of the original dialogue of the actors is no doubt lost on me since I don't speak Cantonese (nor have any desire or need to), in turn, many intentional references and homages to Hollywood films and popular culture immediately apparent to a Western audience, might be far less obvious to a Chinese audience. For example, when 'Donut' is on his deathbed, they quote 3 separate iconic Hollywood films in succession during one piece of dialogue:

Donut: "With great power, comes great responsibility" - Spider-Man (2002)

Landlady: "Donut, you are badly hurt, you must keep still"

Donut: "This could be the end of a beautiful friendship" - A parody of the line from Casablanca (1942)

Landlord: "No, Donut! Tomorrow is another day..." - Gone with the Wind (1939)

This is clearly intended to appeal to a Western audience. Then you have the homage to Gangs of New York (2002) and the parody of the Burly Brawl from The Matrix Reloaded (2003), complete with similarly inspired sound effects to that of the bowling pins being knocked over during the Burly Brawl. And conveniently choreographed by Yuen Woo-ping. Just to name a few.

In closing, I prefer subtitles for all foreign films, including Chinese cinema, except for Kung Fu movies. When it comes to Kung Fu, give me the dubbed version any day.






"People should know when they're conquered" - Quintus

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