Dubbing

[Ian_Lee]

I really hate watching Cantonese speaking film dubbed into Mandarin and Mandarin speaking film dubbed into Cantonese. And of course I dislike

English speaking movies dubbed into Mandarin/Cantonese and vice versa.

Why are those who constantly complain against movies not produced in his/her own language so lazy in reading subtitles?

[skylee]

Perhaps not all the audience are capable of/used to reading (fast) ...

Not that I like dubbing.

[skylee]

I remember after watching the movie "Mistic River" in a HK cinema, I heard a mainlander (obviously a tourist) said, "那麼靜, 我都不敢說話.", which seemed to be a very strange remark to me (luckily during that show none of the phones rang).

[mediamovers]

Dubbing & Subtitling should be practised more as this allows cultural transfer which is essential for all countries/region.Ofcourse most dubbed movies lack quality & thereby the general perception is bad about dubbing.A good dubbing will essentially raise the acceptance of the film in different culture,border & regions.

Subtitling can be practiced for those population who prefer to read.Again its a specialized art which hardly 10% of companies practice.

Stop buying/watching these & see how the quality changes over time.

thanks,

Lawrence

www.media-movers.com

[Lu]

I guess I should agree with Ian Lee, if a movie is in Cantonese, it shouldn't be dubbed, that's changing the movie, and mostly not making it better.

But... personally I'm very very glad all those Hongkong movies are dubbed. Not understanding any Cantonese, I would probably have stopped watching them long ago if they weren't dubbed in Mandarin. And in general, dubbed movies seem to be 'easier', take less effort in understanding, than subtitled ones. Although that's also a matter of xiguan.

[geraldc]

HK movies are a strange case. Often the actors don't speak Cantonese, so their lines are overdubbed by Cantonese actors, so there will always be a need for some dubbing.

It would be interesting to see if anyone would attempt to make a Chinese film with a pan-asian cast in the dogma style.

I remember the bad old days where you would get 3 or 4 subtitles simultaneously on HK videos. Traditional Chinese, simplifed Chinese, some random language e.g. Thai or Korean, then the English subtitle, so the subtitles would cover up half the screen.

But I still prefer subtitles to dubbing.