Why does some media have unnecessary dubbing?

[Brian US]

I've noticed some movies and TV programs in mandarin will be dubbed over again in mandarin. The voices don't sound like they are from the set/stage, but actually from a voice recording. Is this done because the sound equipment for say a WWII battle scene isn't clear enough?

Many times it comes off sounding like a McDonald's commercial with an overly exaggerated voice.

I just found a random example on youku:

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTg4NzY3NTQ0.html

There is another WWII drama with a woman playing as a Japanese officer that sounds just as bad. Still trying to find that one.

edit: thanks for the spelling correction!

[renzhe]

Most mainland TV shows and many movies will do this. It's easier. For live set, you need much better mics and sound engineers, and it makes filming more complicated. It's much easier to record the voices later and mix them in with some battle and wind sounds than to get the perfect sound right there at the stage.

Actually, it was the standard procedure in the HK movie industry until the mid 1990s, when it mostly switched over.

In China, there's also the proper putonghua thing so, for example, Taiwanese guest actors will be dubbed over by somebody with a more "proper" accent. See Ady An in 倚天屠龙记.

[Brian US]

The accent problem makes sense. I've noticed a few times the voice does not match the actor on screen. Sometimes a 20 year old actor sounds like they are 40 years old.

[Gleaves]

I can understand why they do this, but it does bother me a bit. I shudder to think how much a show like 潜伏 would be ruined by dubbing (although it would solve the problem of boom mic peek-a-boo). It certainly does make more sense for 武侠 shows because they have a bunch of sound effects and big open sets. What kills me is when the audio quality is still really bad despite it being recorded in the studio. I know that's probably more due to the fact that I am often watching low quality rmvb files or whatever, but it still irks me. Also, you'd think the voice actors, who I guess are often different than the actors, would be better in general.

[Chinadoog]

Sometimes I'll watch a western movie dubbed in Chinese, and then watch another, and wonder if it was the same voice actor in both movies... like there are only a handful of actors doing the dubbing for every foreign film that comes to China. Anyone else noticed this? Maybe it's just my imagination