Hong Kong Movies
These are DVDs that George bought for about a dollar each when in Hong Kong. He just grabbed the few that he thought we'd either like to own because we'd seen them before or a few that we hadn't seen and wanted to. He didn't look at the packages very closely, which was evidenced by his puzzled face when he handed them to me and I was reading the backs of them and burst out laughing. The translated text (and I use 'translated' loosely) was funny on its own, but the credits on the packaging was even better. Many of them were from comPLETELY different movies. A lot of them were the same, which was cute, and several others were just a hodge-podge of celebrity names just thrown in, sometimes with spaces, sometimes without; sometimes the celebrities were given new names where the name of a film they'd starred in previously was now their middle name...sometimes they were married to other stars without permission. So great. Here is a sampling:
The Incredibles
Be sure to read the text. Below is a close-up of the back. I can't even call it a BOX because they were all printed on color printers with shitty paper, which was folded...not even folded WELL.
This was how the DVD looked once we opened the package. Didn't even TRY to get it lined up properly.
Ya get what ya pay for, peeps. Ya get what ya pay for. And sometimes that's a very, very good thing.
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Indiana Jones
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The Interpreter
Now this was interesting, because the packaging was written properly, yet when we started the movie, this is what we saw on the main (top) menu screen:
See the name of the movie? Notice the distinct LACK of a vowel up there?
Apparently the InterpretR learned through a correspondence course, and a passing grade wasn't required.
Another interesting 'feature' was that the movie was subtitled in Spanish. And you couldn't turn it off. Oh we tried. But you couldn't. So we tried changing it to English, but then we were greeted with english AND spanish subtitles...at the SAME. TIME. Talk about confusing. What was worse is that the english subtitles? From a toooootally different movie. Had soldiers screaming at captains 'n hollering about captures...while Nicole Kidman was happily riding her motorized scooter down the streets of New York City...where there wasn't any dialogue. So THAT shit had to go. We finally managed to get all but the spanish turned off, and we could mostly ignore the spanish subtitles throughout the movie (well...George could...I know a little spanish and want to learn more, so I HAD to read the subtitles aaaaall the way through the movie...and irritate George with my comments about how something wasn't quite right...or why it said this or that...or how it was too literal a translation) but it was even better when, during the movie, someone spoke in another language...cause...you know...the whole freakin' MOVIE is about an INTERPRETER (sorry...InterpretR) so there was a looooot of this, but the spanish would remain at the bottom of the screen, but ABOVE the spanish was the english subtitle translation of the other language words...AUUUGUGGHHHH!!!
Repeat After Me: I will never, not EVER buy DVDs overseas. I will never, not EVER buy DVDs overseas.
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The Pacifier
This was the first movie we watched out of the bunch George bought and it was, BY FAR, my favorite. Not only is the packaging hilarious, but the movie itself was supreme...no, no...not the story...that was pretty sucky, along with the acting...just not all that special, but ohhhhhh the subtitles. We turned on the english subtitles just to see if they were anything like the back of the packages and we were met with some of the funniest shit I have ever seen. I forced George to stop several times so I could take pictures of the screen on some of the funnier translations (the whole thing was hilarious, but George was getting irritated and this page would be a bajillion kilobytes if I did the whole thing) and here they are for you, cause I love ya:
First we have the package:
This was great because you would think that this was a rough interpretation of "Oh, Shit" but the words said had nothing to do with cursing or anything even resembling 'Oh' or 'It'.
Next we have the oriental neighbors who are pissed off at the ruckus going on next door. They are bitching about the noise and hollering various words of Piss Off and this is what is shown on the screen while the neighbors are bitching...again...NOTHING to do with what's actually being said.
Vin's character apparently has some little device that will translate the spoken word and his reply (by THOUGHT apparently) all in mere seconds. Vin's character's name is 'Shane' (though the subtitle people never ONCE got the name right, and in fact typed a different name for him each time it was spoken...the closest being 'Zhang') so Shane says his reply to the neighbors in their language, they reply with "We speak english" and this is what the subtitles decided they said instead:
Speaking of screwy American name translations, just so you know, if your name is Julie? Overseas you will be known as 'Zhu-Ling'. Zoe is 'Qua-lee' and if your name is Seth? Well you're just fucked, honey, cause you will forevermore be known as 'Reveal'.
After being told off by the neighbors, 'Reveal' turns to yell at 'Sean' (not Shane, Sean!) which apparently needed a rewrite by the brilliant translation expert:
Moving right along, Reveal's girlfriend comes outside and is not at ALL pleased that she isn't gettin' some from her man and begins to tell Shane off. Here are two screenshots -- in order -- of her anger:
'Peng' is apparently a catchall term for anything from 'shit' to 'sex' to 'I only know 3 engrish words and whenever I can't keep up and/or figure out what the actors are saying, I type Assorted Peng...nobody ever know! Subtitle Guy apparently also has a few anger issues of his own, as there were a few places in the movies where people would be speaking nicely to each other and Subtitle Guy would instead type: "You Shut Up Please!!" and "This Not Interesting"...he apparently was crying out for help through his translated text...and -- just his luck -- the only person to see it was the one bitch who'd put it up on her website and make fun of it. People? I was CRYING by the end of the movie.
Here is the second portion of Qua-Lee's lousy temper:
It is the time that lady spoke! It is not, however, the time that we TRANSLATE what lady spoke! Lady are dumb and insignificant. We just tell people that they spoke. Nobody care!
Jing (nope, still not Shane) needs to scold Sha-owee (not EVER Zoe) and tell her how naughty she is and how she should tell her mother what she's done. Again...the subtitle? Not EVEN close on either:
We then proceed to the live-in nanny, the great Carol Kane, who is also yelling at Chang (don't even THINK his name is Shane!) and she is apparently using codewords and metaphors that we, the audience, are supposed to decipher, since she said NOTHING -- at least nothing OVERT -- about maps or pictures:
Soon thereafter, we cut to a scene that is supposed to begin by letting us know where the children's mother is while Jiang (stop saying Shane!) is babysitting (which apparently has now been shortened to BB!). This screenshot is the point where I spit my drink onto my chest. If you don't know why it's funny, you need to stop reading my site right now and promise not to come back until you've gone back to school:
Hey! He was only off by about 11,000 miles! Whaddaya want?!
Our next shot was of some snotty-pants school coach who was reprimanding the children for some infraction or other, but our precious translator was apparently in a poetic mood, choosing to take creative license instead of translating the content properly:
And, finally, the icing on the cake. My last screenshot for ya is when Choe-ay-ee (Zoe WHO!?!) is helping the kids escape and she tells them to hang on. This is apparently a communist threat meaning:
And all this time I thought this was a young-person's comedy...had no IDEA it was propaganda. Ya just never know, do ya?
I cannot stress how anxious I am for George to go back to Hong Kong where he will be able to spend our life savings on many other crapp-ily translated DVDs.
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