Botched dubbing of a Taiwanese Mandarin film on the mainland

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From Eoin Cullen:

This is a really fascinating story:  a Taiwanese film ("Dāng nánrén liàn'ài shí 当男人恋爱时" ["Man in Love"]) where the main character has been dubbed for the mainland Chinese release. The film is mostly in accented Taiwan Mandarin and the protagonist peppers his speech with Southern Min (Taiwanese / Hoklo), so someone decided there’d be a comprehensibility issue for mainland audiences (despite the fact that there are Chinese language subtitles on all films, Chinese or otherwise). In the dubbed version the protagonist has a notable mainland Mandarin accent, which is hilarious for Taiwanese netizens. This to me would be like if the film Trainspotting had been dubbed into American English for its US release.

The Chinese article discussing the mainland release has a short trailer (0:58) where you can hear the ludicrous effect discussed by Eoin Cullen above.  To me, this trailer is a work of genius — the actors are fabulous and the shots, including the music and sound effects, are memorable.  We've often discussed "earworms" on Language Log, so now — just on the basis of this sub-minute trailer, I'd like to propose the notion of an "eyeworm" (separate from the parasitic disease).

Points to emphasize and contemplate:

1. Why do all films in China, whether foreign or Chinese, have subtitles?  Think what it would be like if it were de rigueur for all films made in America / England, France, and Germany respectively to have English, French, and German subtitles — and so on and so forth.  This is a topic we've discussed on previous occasions and is a good index of linguistic realities in China compared to the rest of the world — realities that are underappreciated both by Chinese and non-Chinese alike.

2. The gap between Taiwan Mandarin and mainland Mandarin is sufficiently large as to result in a problem of the two sides comprehending each other.

3. If the original film had been in Taiwanese / Hoklo / Southern Min rather than Taiwan Mandarin, the level of comprehensibility would be almost zero for speakers of mainland Mandarin.

In the festering, incipient war between Taiwan and China, creative cinema is a powerful weapon in the hands of the Taiwanese — just one of many that are non-kinetic.


Selected readings

"Subpar subtitles" (2/9/19)
"Barbarian Language in a Chinese movie" (9/20/20)
"Mutual unintelligibility among Sinitic lects" (10/5/14)
"Language Diversity in the Sinophone World" (10/26/20)
"Triple topolectal reprimand" (5/29/16)
"Trainspotting-like Voices in Chinese" (3/12/11)



22 Comments

  1. Bathrobe said,

    May 22, 2021 @ 7:05 am

    “Mad Max” (the first one) was, I believe, originally dubbed into American English for American audiences.

  2. Cervantes said,

    May 22, 2021 @ 7:17 am

    The film "The Harder They Come," made in Jamaica, is in English with English subtitles. Perhaps there are other examples. You certainly wouldn't want to dub it however.

  3. David C. said,

    May 22, 2021 @ 10:21 am

    I find same-language subtitles/captions for films and TV programs incredibly helpful and don't see eye to eye with some who suggest that they are somehow only for the hearing-impaired. For languages I know and speak well, I find that having both the sound and the written text complements my understanding so that I can be less focused. Accents across the English-speaking world are diverse and subtitles help me gain better appreciation of films and TV programming from other regions.

    And as for languages that I am learning, subtitles are a valuable learning tool to check that I have heard a phrase correctly (often I discover that I know all the words in question but did not perceive the word boundaries correctly) and to note any words that I am unfamiliar with.

    With respect to dubbing of films and TV programs in mainland China, actors are dubbed over all the time because of their (what is deemed strong) non-standard accents. On certain TV entertainment programs, there have been episodes which featured actors of popular TV dramas re-enacting lines in their heavily-accented Mandarin, which the audience finds hilarious because they are used to hearing their dubbed voices.

    I do not recall the regulation in question, but as a matter of course, films released in mainland China cannot contain more than a certain amount of non-Manadarin topolect, which it seems would apply this film in question.

  4. cliff arroyo said,

    May 22, 2021 @ 10:37 am

    "“Mad Max” (the first one) was, I believe, originally dubbed into American

    Didn't they also shown mirror image to make it look like they're driving on the right?

  5. Victor Mair said,

    May 22, 2021 @ 11:15 am

    From a Singaporean friend:

    Shaohua Guo’s chapter Farewell, China Nostalgia: A Case Study of Commercial Cinema in Taiwan in Locating Taiwan Cinema in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Paul G. Pickowicz and Yingjin Zhang, in the Cambria Sinophone series, would be of related interest.

  6. Christian Weisgerber said,

    May 22, 2021 @ 3:30 pm

    In countries that routinely dub all foreign language productions that sort of thing happens. For instance, the Switzerland-set episodes of the crime procedural Tatort are shot in Swiss German and broadcast this way in Switzerland. For Germany, they are dubbed into Swiss-accented Standard German. The Québécois TV series Minuit, le soir was dubbed into Metropolitan French for broadcast by France 2.

    In a similar vein, I have the impression that British productions that are intended for export take care to use internationally comprehensible English. A striking recent example was Gangs of London, which given the setting should have been all impenetrable Cockney, but surprisingly wasn't.

  7. Bathrobe said,

    May 22, 2021 @ 5:02 pm

    I only ever watched one episode of Downton Abbey but I noticed the language was clearly geared to American audiences, The one I remember is about a staff member who thought he was buying high-quality flour but was sold a fake substitute instead. He lamented “I’ve been had!”, which any self-respecting Englishman (or Australian, for that matter) would understand instantly, but he immediately added an explanation in “standard” English that he’d been swindled (I don’t remember the exact term used). I found it detracted considerably from the authenticity.

  8. cliff arroyo said,

    May 22, 2021 @ 6:16 pm

    Downton Abbey was full of language anachronisms. I remember one character telling herself "This is not who you are!"…

    I remember a American co-worker (who worked part time in a department store) loved "Are you being served?" but admitted she only understood about half the dialogue…

  9. R. Fenwick said,

    May 22, 2021 @ 10:43 pm

    @Victor Mair: creative cinema is a powerful weapon in the hands of the Taiwanese — just one of many that are non-kinetic

    Might I just tangentially comment on the amusing etymological irony of cinema (Greek κίνημα "movement") being considerable as a non-kinetic (Greek κινητικός "movable, mobile") weapon? :)

  10. David Morris said,

    May 22, 2021 @ 10:57 pm

    Looking for more information, I found that this is a remake of a South Korean movie, the trailer for which looks much grittier.

  11. David Marjanović said,

    May 23, 2021 @ 2:48 am

    Let me join the appreciation of the pun on kinetic!

    2. The gap between Taiwan Mandarin and mainland Mandarin is sufficiently large as to result in a problem of the two sides comprehending each other.

    Is that so in general, or is the issue here only that "the protagonist peppers his speech with Southern Min"? (Not that I couldn't believe it is, but I can't tell from this example.)

    For instance, the Switzerland-set episodes of the crime procedural Tatort are shot in Swiss German and broadcast this way in Switzerland. For Germany, they are dubbed into Swiss-accented Standard German.

    In Austria, TV productions are generally shot in Standard German with occasional limited code-switching even if in reality everyone would be speaking their dialect. Nobody blinks an eye; TV is socioculturally classified as belonging to the formal, supraregional register.

  12. Julian said,

    May 23, 2021 @ 7:30 am

    60yo Australian here
    When watching British cop shows with regional settings I sometimes wish there were subtitles.

    It's interesting how little difference from your own variety is needed to throw you off. I've occasionally had trouble understanding people in London.

  13. Cervantes said,

    May 23, 2021 @ 7:56 am

    The movie "Daughters of the Dust" is in Gullah, a creole of English and west African languages. The auteur chose not to provide subtitles. Some reviewers actually appreciated this, finding that experiencing the emotional content of some scenes without fully understanding the dialogue was actually gratifying. Given my left brain personality, I found it frustrating, although the emotional arc of the story did come across.

  14. Richard Horton said,

    May 23, 2021 @ 9:54 am

    Subtitles are useful if you want to listen to music and occasionally do something on the computer at the same time. Accepting multiple inputs makes me feel a little like David Bowie in The Man Who Fell To Earth.

  15. Victor Mair said,

    May 23, 2021 @ 10:57 am

    From Chau Wu:

    Here's another botched event: The Korean KBS put out a drama about Koguryo (Goguryeo) empire – the TV series turned out to be short-lived – whose title was translated to Mandarin as 月升之江 in Taiwan. In a segment, it showed a letter written in Chinese which turned out to be in 現代白話文 and in simplified characters.

    https://ent.ltn.com.tw/news/breakingnews/3493083

  16. Kate Bunting said,

    May 23, 2021 @ 11:27 am

    Conversely, I sometimes watch American series such as NCIS with subtitles because I can't always catch fast colloquial dialogue.

  17. Not a naive speaker said,

    May 23, 2021 @ 4:34 pm

    Where I watch TV I can switch the subtitles on and off (as in Youtube).

    Are the subtitles on Chinese TV always on?

    In low cost production (e.g. interviews) is there voice over or "real" dubbing?

  18. Neil Kubler said,

    May 23, 2021 @ 11:26 pm

    Regarding David Marjanović's question about the gap between Taiwan Mandarin and "mainland Mandarin" in the film in question, I think the short answer would be that comprehension in this case suffers mainly because, as David puts it, "the protagonist peppers his speech with Southern Min". The longer answer would include: What exactly is meant by "mainland Mandarin" and "Taiwan Mandarin"? If the answer is the standard varieties as promulgated by the respective Ministries of Education (which, to be sure, only a minority of speakers on both sides have full control of), then I think comprehension is actually no problem. And if we mean Guoyu/Huayu and Putonghua as spoken by college graduates below the age of 50, then again, I think comprehension is no problem. The situation could be compared with that of speakers of American and British English.

  19. Chas Belov said,

    May 24, 2021 @ 2:30 pm

    I speak American English and would have understood "I've been had!"

    The Hong Kong movies I've seen usually have Standard Chinese and English subtitles. However, I occasionally encountered movies, The Queen of Temple Street for example, subtitled in Colloquial Cantonese and English.

  20. Bathrobe said,

    May 24, 2021 @ 10:00 pm

    @ Chas Belov

    Thanks for that! Who, then, were they rephrasing for? Foreign learners of English?

  21. Vanya said,

    May 26, 2021 @ 6:01 am

    Think what it would be like if it were de rigueur for all films made in America / England, France, and Germany respectively to have English, French, and German subtitles — and so on and so forth.

    Thanks to Netflix and Amazon this is becoming a reality. My kids usually turn on English subtitles for English shows, despite being native English speakers with fine hearing. It is actually interesting to discover how much dialogue you miss without realising it without subtitles.

  22. Josh R said,

    May 27, 2021 @ 8:33 pm

    I'm another American for whom "I've been had," is a perfectly natural and understood idiom that's part of American English.

    Having looked up the dialogue, the character says, "I've been tricked! I've been had! I've been taken for the fool that I am!" I don't think the rephrasing was for any particular audience, but simply part of a repetition to show the character's distress.

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