Foreign Language Movies

The dubbed version lasted all of 5 minutes for me. I generally find that subtitles are actually less obtrusive because you don't get the lip-syncing issues even if the translation is a bit off!

If you liked Hero, try and track down a copy of Ran by Akira Kurosawa.

Yes I agree, Crouching Tiger, Hero, Flying Daggers etc... much better in original language with subs on. It makes you concentrate on the film more and the dubbed version just seems wrong.

I'll fourth your comments - All the Chinese/Korean/Japanese movies I have watched defintely preferable in the original language with subtitles.

Nick.

Agree too - I much prefer films in the original language, dubbing is awful!

I have developed an interest in foreign language films - it really does make a change from hearing English dialogue all the time - for me, hearing another language being spoken transforms the whole experience of watching the film

Cheers,

Jon

Agreed - dubbing (has anybody ever seen a good one!!??) detracts from the enjoyment of any foreign language movie!!

Latest one I had the pleasure of enjoying was Kung Fu Hustle - what a laugh!!

Cheers,
Ali

Call me a film snob but I would never watch a dubbed foreign film. Its the emotional inflection that is alway missing no matter how good the dubbed track has been done.

Would recommend Old Boy and Downfall. Both have stonking dts tracks.

Cool replies!

Yeah, House of Flying Daggers was definitely better in Mandarin. Funny that the subtitles did not detract from the enjoyment of the movies at all!

It depends on how quickly you read I suppose.

A slow reader might lose the all-important (and often inscrutable) facial expressions.

The Germans dub everything on their usually-free satellite TV channels. If they showed english films and series with german subtitles it would be a much more useful service. They have a huge range of interesting stuff from all over the world but if you don't understand german well then it's just watching pictures.

You want awful dubbing? Listen to danish TV doing kids english cartoon programmes dubbed into danish. The same damn voices on every one and always shrieking at the tops of their voices. Totally amateur, totally pointless, completely out of original context and bløødy annoying! It's no wonder kids suffer from hyperactivity!

The original actors will have spent much more time preparing for the role, often they are simply the better actor, they are on the set and physically interacting. The dub actors OTOH may not even be in the studio at the same time as their "co-dub-stars" and I think they usually wear headphones while doing the dialogue.

Another thing to consider is that the original dialogue is recorded with overhead mics which pick up the ambience. The ambience in the dubbed version is supplied by Lexicon or Behringer.

Interestingly, the reason almost everything is dubbed for German TV and cinemas dates back to the Third Reich. I was told by a woman who runs a subtitling firm that the Nazi regime didn't want to flat-out forbid the showing of foreign films, but they felt they could alter the artistic message somewhat by means of dubbing. After the war the German public had become so used to watching dubbed films that they never went back. The advent of DVD was a blessing in that respect.

quote:

Originally posted by Thomas K:
The original actors will have spent much more time preparing for the role, often they are simply the better actor, they are on the set and physically interacting. The dub actors OTOH may not even be in the studio at the same time as their "co-dub-stars" and I think they usually wear headphones while doing the dialogue.

But isn't most dialogue re-recorded for the original version?

As far as I'm aware this is rarely the case (perhaps for scenes which involve the actors jumping off a cliff yelling "Geronimo!").

Next time you watch a DVD see if the extras include scenes from the cutting-room floor ... they're often unedited and sound pretty rough, but I'm quite certain they use the dialogue captured on set and polish it with all kinds of fancy equipment.

I think it would be nigh on impossible to lip-sync the exact same words without it showing up (as evidenced by the cheap commericals you see on TV where they obviously couldn't afford a good-looking actor with a decent voice or a decent voice with good looks). In the dubbed version lip movements and dialogue are so far off that it doesn't matter anyway.

I could be wrong, but really ... how often does that happen? ;-)

Edit: Just asked the oracle (google). Apparently, ADR (Additional Dialogue Replacement) is quite common in "busy" scenes when extraneous noises are too loud. Lip syncing is achieved by digital manipulation.

Check this, particularly the section entitled "Looping" (= ADR).

quote:

Originally posted by Thomas K:
Interestingly, the reason almost everything is dubbed for German TV and cinemas dates back to the Third Reich. I was told by a woman who runs a subtitling firm that the Nazi regime didn't want to flat-out forbid the showing of foreign films, but they felt they could alter the artistic message somewhat by means of dubbing. After the war the German public had become so used to watching dubbed films that they never went back. The advent of DVD was a blessing in that respect.

Thomas,

Thanks for this - I have been interested in finding out the reason everything is dubbed into German in Germany (and Austria) for a very long time! That said, I have "Das Boot" on DVD, and it's possible to set it to dubbed English dialogue. However, I would never watch it in anything other than German - it would just sound so "wrong" in any other language.

Cheers,

Jon

I rarely watched foreign language films until I got my DVD player two or three years ago. Now, perhaps half my DVDs - and 90% of the DVDs I hire - are non-English. In almost every case, where there is a choice, I prefer subbed to dubbed - although I don't think many of my DVDs even have a dub option.

I haven't watched Hero in English - I must give it a try next time I watch it.

I find the dubbed versions of most Japanese animes unwatchable for many reasons. One exception is Kino's Journey in which the English dub of Kino's talking motorcycle has an appropriately "tubular" sound and (at least to this non-japanese speaker) seems to have more character, and in which the dub and sub differ in interesting ways.