I enjoyed this movie and I found it very funny. I understand this is a comedy and it's never supposed to be realistic. However the "Chinese" that all characters speak really sucks! The film makers have no idea how real Chinese dialects (both Cantonese and Putonghua/Mandarin) sound like and they make no effort to improve the authenticity of either the dialogue or the pronounciation. Sadly, this is the common pratice nowadays in Hollywood.
shareWell, I would think that the film makers assume that a very small portion of the viewers will actually know Chinese, everyone else as long as they make it sound good, they won't know the difference anyways. This way, all the actors and everyone wouldn't need to take classes or whatever to learn the real dialects and all that.
However, I assume you know Chinese, so is RDJ even saying real Chinese words at all during his confrontation with Flaming Dragon? I love that scene, but the more I watch it and actually listen to what is coming out of his mouth the more I'm like "are those even real words??"
I'm a Chinese native speaker. What annoys me most is that none of the actors actually speaks Chinese (either Cantonese or Mandarin). I guess they somehow managed to memorize the pronounciation (or the sound) word by word, resulting the whole dialogue completely incomprehensible to native ears. Robert Downey Jr. gave the worst example in the scene of his confrontation with Flaming Dragon gangsters, I couldn't understand a word of what he's saying. I appreciate his overall performance in the film, but his Chinese is just too unconvincing.
shareSince the movie is making fun of movie conventions, I would think that having actors correctly speak lines in Chinese would work against that vibe.
shareAgreed. It may even have been an intentional 'in joke' to mock 'bad acting/language work' in hollywood.
could definitely have been an in joke.
I think the OP and all native speakers of Chinese dialects should realise just what they're asking here, this isn't a movie made for native chinese speakers, and as a result the other languages spoke in the movie are simply "placeholder" to give you an idea of what's going on. It doesn't need to be accurate.
if all actors spent weeks learning how to do this stuff properly we'd have no movies...
As a native Chinese speaker myself, I thought RDJ's mandarin was one of the funniest moments of the whole movie. The nonsense that he was speaking was hysterical!
sharethat was on purpose. they purposely spoke terribly, part of the satire on hollywood.
shareTHATS EXACTLY HOW I FEEL WHEN I SEE "ENGRISH" IN ANIME. ITS LIKE IF THE JAPANESE ARE SO GREAT WHY CANT THEY GET PEOPLE WHO SPEAK ENGLISH WELL. HOWEVER TO ME OF COURSE ITS AMUSING SO I HOPE THEY NEVER SPEAK ENGLISH WELL BECAUSE IT WOULD RUIN THE FUN. BUT THEY COULD ALSO BE TOO CHEAP TO HIRE SOMEONE WHO SPEAKS ENGLISH OR IN THIS CASE CHINESE AND GIVES THE CHAINEEZ SPEAKERS A FEW POINTERS TO IMPROVE IT SLIGHTLY. THEYRE BEING *beep* CHEAP.
sharesnuffles_animagus
As a native Chinese speaker myself, I thought RDJ's mandarin was one of the funniest moments of the whole movie. The nonsense that he was speaking was hysterical!
Um...undoubtedly Robert Downey Jr.'s Chinese was intentionally terrible.
Can't speak for any of the other actors.
Robert Downey Jr. gave the worst example in the scene of his confrontation with Flaming Dragon gangsters, I couldn't understand a word of what he's saying
Yeah, this is probably one of the jokes, since they have Lazarus learning it well enough for some other role that he still knows it. I liked Kill Bill, for instance, but you could totally tell the only non-japanese person who could actually speak japanese was Julie Dreyfus.
shareThe reason that most of them do not speak Chinese that well, is because most of them are not Chinese. I believe most of them are Vietnamese, except for Brandon. And of course, as the world is becoming more village-like, just because one person is of the ethnicity, doesn't mean that they can speak the language. So for all we know, they may have been trying their best. And whether that is deliberate on the part of the casting to make a point about racism in films or just lazy ass Stiller being racist is up for debate.
sharejust because one person is of the ethnicity, doesn't mean that they can speak the language.
Have you seen the mans resume? He isn't lazy.
shareI agree with those who said they did the Chinese bad intentionally. The whole movie is humorously mocking Hollywood, including the terrible attempts at speaking foreign language and the really bad subtitles that appeared. If Robert Downey Jr. (for example) spoke Mandarin perfectly it would take away from the feel of the film.
shareAlthough I get your complaint about foreign languages in Hollywood, I think in Tropic Thunder it's part of the joke also. Every level of parody is so well thought out in this movie you can safely assume that the whole Chinese language-bit is a joke in itself.
Reminds me of Austin Power In Goldmember, where Goldmember is supposed to come from Holland but speaks english with more of a german accent than a dutch one. Here's one case though where I'm sure the joke would've worked better if they took the effort of getting the dutch-english accent right. Because, if done right, the dutch accent might even be funnier than a german one, and it is a lot less over-used in movies.
Hmm, by the way, that movie also had Tom Cruise in a cameo. Makes you wonder... ;-)
Flaming dragon were criminal thugs, I wouldn't expect perfect English out of an NFL football player, I mean criminal, so no problem here, right?
shareMeh. The only thing that really bugged me was no one really said which country they were in and only had vague suggestions like Vietnam, Myanmar and Laos. They do know that none of these countries speak chinese right? Of course with the Panda there they might have meant that they were in China but the 'Cast' were all too ignorant to figure that out.
On the side note, RDJ's chinese was hilarious. Especially with the black accent on. He really stole the show I would say.
They were a criminal organization hiding out in the jungle, why would they need to speak the language of whatever country they were in?
shareProbably because that was the language they were brought up speaking. Most criminals are not well known for their high education. I'd doubt they'd be able to learn another language so fluently.
sharewhether or not the bad spoken chinese was intentional, it is plausible that some of these druglords in the vietnam/laos/myanmar triangle are ethnic chinese (remnants of chang kai shek's forces/refugees/long term southern china immigrants) that can't go back to communist china and had since taken roots in the jungle harvesting/processing narcotics and the long isolation from mainland chinese population and mingling with native tribes can lead to corruption of the chinese language after a generation or two.
shareIt's all south east Asia baby.
I have a pretty hard time believing they walked all the way to China though.
Prof. Farnsworth: Oh. A lesson in not changing history from Mr. I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!
The storyline said it was supposed to be southeast Vietnam. As far as the irony, Downy's character speaking very bad Mandarin was part of the joke. However the "real" people doing the heroin growing should have been speaking correctly--Vietnamese, one would presume.
shareTroll Alert
Do you like have anything to say that is not the least bit racist?
Were the Subtitles even close to what anyone was saying in Mandarin? Regardless of the terrible pronunciation.
shareDon't really speak chinese but i understand vaguely so it sounded about right. Though if I'm not mistaken when the kid mafia boss fellow recognize Tugg he doesn't say "It's Simple Jack" but rather "(It's)Stupid Jack." Hilarious to me but I'm not sure.
shareNo, he's saying "You are Simple Jack."
shareI just assumed it was on purpose - and will propose that you should assume the same.
share