A decent movie needs a snappy title, right? Or at least a memorable one. Zack Snyder is much more likely to be remembered for Watchmen, 300 & Sucker Punch than for Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, I'd wager. So the title is pretty important.
Now almost all movies get released all over the world and it turns out some of the people in foreign lands don't even speak English? Madness. So the flick gets translated, including the title. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't.
An example:
An excellent film with a no-nonsense title. Not so in China. No. There it's called 'This Hitman Is Not As Cold As He Thought'.
Yeah. Turns out this is pretty common. In Germany; Airplane became The Unbelievable Trip In A Wacky Aeroplane and, incredibly, China never got to experience The Shawshank Redemption, but instead got the stupefying title 'Excitement 1995'!
Want more? Well check out this list of 50 Funny Movie Translations to see how films can be completely undermined by having their title translated. The one for Sixth Sense is incredible.
One of my personal favourites though: 'Leaving Las Vegas' becoming 'I'm Drunk And You're A Prostitute' in Japan. Hyuk hyuk.
No comments:
Post a Comment