Today I saw a trailer of The Lady, a film about Aung San Suu Kyi . However, the Chinese translation of the title is 以爱之名，翁山苏姬，which means ‘In the name of love, Aung San Suu Kyi’. The phrase ‘In the name of love’ added in Chinese was clearly not in the original.
It inspires me to look at a few western film and TV film titles that have been translated into Chinese. English film titles commonly have 2 or 3 versions in Chinese, to cater to different markets in Taiwan, Hong Kong and China.
Chinese film titles seem to be more explicit, or funnier than their English originals. Here are 6 more interesting ones:
1) Predator :
终极战士（Ultimate warrior) and 铁血战士（Iron blood warrior)
2) V for Vendetta:
V 字仇杀队（Letter V Vendetta team) and V 怪客 (Stranger V)
3) Dr. Who:
神秘博士 (A mysterious Doctor) – (In Chinese, this ‘doctor’ means someone with a PhD degree!); 异世奇人 (A magical person in Other worlds)
Doctor Who — a mysterious man with a PhD degree?
4) Trainspotting:
猜火车 (Guessing the trains) — Imust say, this is my favourite!
Trainspotting — ‘Guessing the trains’
Image
5) The Full Monty：
一脱到底 ( Striping all off)；脱衣舞男 (Naked male dancer)；光猪六壮士 (naked pigs 6 strong men; p/s naked pigs is a colloquial expression for ‘naked’)
6） The King’s Speech:
国王的演讲 (The King’s Speech – China version)
王者之声，宣战时刻 (The Voice of the King, the moment declaring the war – Taiwan version)
皇上无话儿 (The king has got nothing to say – Hong Kong version)
The moment declaring the war
The king has nothing to say?
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I have seen some of these and they are really good. (The King’s Speech, The Full Monty, Trainspotting and of course Dr Who).
Hi Colline,
Indeed, I love these films too, but I often find Dr. Who more difficult to understand, as I don’t seem to have a good grasp on time travelling. The other 3 films you mentioned are very touching. What do you think of their Chinese translations? Aren’t they hilarious?
Interesting to read the translated titles! Since we love watching movies/foreign film, I often wondered why the words didn’t match the expressions!
Film titles can be hilarious and they don’t make sense. Cultural differences play a big part I think. Trainspotting, for example, a story about drug addicts became ‘Guessing the trains’, it’s all Lost in Translation!
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He he he I I love these translations! Similar stories are with translating films’ titles into Polish. Trust me, they just don’t match to original titles at all. Why do they do it? I often wondered …
Hi Irena,
It reflects cultural differences, doesn’t it? Perhaps you can write about films in Polish to entertain us too. I look forward to your writing.
All of them I haven’t wacht.. heheee
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