Foreign language shows with subtitles

[LVSteve]

How do you guys get on with subtitled shows? I have no problem with them, but I suggested one on the MHz channel to a coworker the other day and you would think I suggested boiled beagle for dinner. Maybe I'm a particlarly quick reader or something, but I've never had a problem with subtitled shows. In fact, I far prefer subtitles and the original language to some flaky English overdub.

[Old TexMex]

"Rififi" is my favorite foreign ( French) film. Maybe because it has about 20 minutes with no dialogue at all...
Subtitles don't bother me a bit, better than overdub,generally speaking. ( except japanese monster films of course, half the fun is the overdub, but those aren't really movies, are they.)

Spanish I can understand, so those don't count

[feralmerril]

I think they are okay as I also am a fast reader. I also am a BAD speller. Anyway my wife is a slooow reader and hates them so she switchs the channel.

[Onomea]

In some ways, I prefer subtitles as I don't have to strain to hear what's going on... I also enjoy foreign films occasionally as the Hollywood stuff can get pretty formulaic.

[1morethan8]

Why do we only see shows made in the South with subtitles!?

Can't the rest of you understand English!?

[LVSteve]

Originally Posted by 1morethan8

Why do we only see shows made in the South with subtitles!?

Can't the rest of you understand English!?

Sorry, can't understand you. Closed captioning is not working on the forum.

[steveno]

when the Godfather came out we found a theater in downtown Frankfurt so whether than wait for it to show up on base we went to see it. it turns out that every show but the last one was in German except for English subtitles. the movie just doesn't come across right with subtitles as not every line was there. we went again a couple of days later for the English version and it was so much better as it no comparison.

[CW Spook]

I watched "Tora, Tora, Tora" when it first came out in a theater in ***uoka, Japan. The Japanese parts were subtitled in English, and the American parts subtitled in Japanese. It was a very interesting experience, especially because another Navy guy & I were the only Americans in the audience. One of the things I enjoy about the FX series, "The Americans" is that they usually subtitle the Russian parts rather than having them speak English in places where it would be out of context.

[Marshwheeling]

Between my hearing loss and actors who mumble, I need subtitles on everything.

[SmokeStack Lightning]

I still have trouble understanding dialog in British/Austrailian films but especially when I was younger.

"Swamp People" dialog is sub-titled too, but I have no problem understanding them probably because both of my parents are from the hills of Appalachia.

[Dennis The B]

"Das Boot" is a much better movie with English subtitles.

And +1 on "Tora!, Tora!, Tora!". While the execution may have been a bit flawed, the concept of a "Japanese" view and an "American" view, was groundbreaking.

[Boxhead]

Here in Korea I have at least a couple of hundred channels. Of those eight are in English with Korean sub-titles. :-)

[hangnoose]

In cases where having lines in English would be totally out of place, I don't mind them, IF they keep them fairly short, are in large enough print to see well & shown long enough to read. My wife hates them. The series Lillyhamer does a pretty good job. Actors doing a bad job of accents can be worse. otherwise good films can be pretty much ruined by a bad sound crew/tract that you just can't understand & is annoying, combine that with the popular trend of the gravel throated voice can be a real stinker, think Clint Eastwood in Heartbreak ridge. It's funny how many actors playing a variety of nationalities have Brittish accents. My best man who is soon to be in his 40th year in movies/tv from grip to director, says the entire cast/crew often work entire days with the accent of the day, some favorites are Australian/Indian/ Cockney/ Scottish/ American South, NY, Boston. Some of our best actors seem to do everything in their native accent, like Al Paccino with the exception of scarface. He even does some Shakespear with his NY dialect.

[Arik]

I love foreign films. Lots of good movies.

Check out the movie lives of others. Great movie about a E. German statsi analyst who ended up helping the couple he was asigned to spy on. Check it out, great movie.

Another good one was ......I forget the name but it was a Korean version of Saving Private Ryan. Very good movie with lots of Garands and M1 carbines. About 2 brothers who join the S. Korean army and the older brother's attempt to keep his younger brother alive

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[BearBio]

Wife and I both have hearing loss to some degree, so we have subtitles on all the time. I speak English, German, some Gaelic and understand Dutch, as well as some Spanish. It gives me good practice.

We watched a movie called "The Trench" last night. No subtitles. I THINK it was in English since it was about British soldiers in WWI.

[UncleEd]

Love foreign films. I've found that the French ones are easiest to read the subtitles since the French seem to speak in short sentences. And the French seem to have the funniest films,
I think. They also have some excellent gangster films both from
the 50s and 60s and currently.

But as an aside, saw the British "Moone Boy" on PBS (Saturdays). Episode was entitled "Goodfellas" and involved the church's altar boys, all of whom wore leather jackets. The Moone Boy for a time was allowed to become a Made Boy in the kids' thievery.
The Moone Boy has an imaginary adult friend played by Chris O'Dowd, one of the stars of "Bridesmaids." Very funny, especially
the stuff pulled on the poor priest.

[kozmic]

"Benny Hill" really needed subtitles. I have no idea what language those blokes were speaking!:

[OFT II]

Originally Posted by kozmic

"Benny Hill" really needed subtitles. I have no idea what language those blokes were speaking!:

About fifteen years ago three of us were working in Chongqing, China. One evening each week at about six o'clock the local Chinese station would run a Benny Hill re-run in the local lingo. We would hurry like hell to get to the hotel with a few bottles of Tsingtao beer and watch Benny Hill in Chinese which was better than in the King's English.

[kmyers]

Originally Posted by Arik

I love foreign films. Lots of good movies.

Check out the movie lives of others. Great movie about a E. German statsi analyst who ended up helping the couple he was asigned to spy on. Check it out, great movie.

Another good one was ......I forget the name but it was a Korean version of Saving Private Ryan. Very good movie with lots of Garands and M1 carbines. About 2 brothers who join the S. Korean army and the older brother's attempt to keep his younger brother alive

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Sounds like this one:

Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War (2004) - IMDb

We have a copy of it on the PC and it is a very good movie.

[Arik]

Originally Posted by kmyers

Sounds like this one:

Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War (2004) - IMDb

We have a copy of it on the PC and it is a very good movie.

That's the one! I could never remember the name

Another good one is 9 Rota (9th company). Russian flick about the Afghanistan war. Like Full Metal Jacket, you follow the recruits from their entrance into boot camp to their demise in Afghanistan


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[kmyers]

Another series where you have read a bit is the Battles Without Honor and Humanity series based on newspaper articles about the Yakuza. It is a series of 6 films detailing the Yakuza from the end of World War II up until the early 70s.

[mjr]

A couple of months ago my wife and I watched a DVD of "The Guard," starring Brendan Gleeson, a funny and exciting crime movie shot a few years ago in Ireland. The accents of most characters were so thick that after five minutes we went back and turned on the English subtitles. It made a world of difference.

[timn8er]

As a kid I was an Air Force brat, & did a lot of my growing up in the Canal Zone. I remember watching a lot of TV in Spanish, which at the time wasn't a problem as it was a second language to me. My favorite show was The Seven Samurai, & it wasn't till many years later that I realized the weirdness of it all. I mean all these Japanese warriors hopping around slicing each up, all the time screaming in Spanish!

[LVSteve]

Originally Posted by UncleEd

Love foreign films. I've found that the French ones are easiest to read the subtitles since the French seem to speak in short sentences. And the French seem to have the funniest films,
I think. They also have some excellent gangster films both from
the 50s and 60s and currently.

Funny you should mention French material. I watch the Maigret shows with Bruno Cremer in the title role. Enough of my high school French has stuck that I can tell when they have abbreviated or screwed up the subtitles. Sometimes I can even spot it in the Italian Detective Montalbano shows.

[captorquewrench]

I just can't imagine any of Guillermo del Toro's spanish films translated with English overdubs. Pan's Labyrinth in English? No thank you.

It doesn't matter if you don't like the story lines or acting--his films are breathtakingly beautiful works of cinematic art. Granted, dark, but stunningly gorgeous. I believe dubbing would take a lot away from that.

Of course, sometimes it's hilarious. There is a silly Asian film called CJ-7. I watched it with English subtitles. DIed laughing. Then found an overdubbed version but the bad dubbing just made it all the funnier. I think the same the thing happened with Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Dunk.

[shouldazagged]

It feels like an insult to my intelligence, when watching an American WWII movie, to see and hear Robert Vaughn or <shudder!> Robert Shaw speak English with dreadful German accents so everyone will know they are playing Germans.

Subtitles would be bliss compared to listening to Shaw playing a sinister Panzer SS officer. But so would a root canal.

[reddogge]

I want the actors to speak the language they are representing with English subtitles. I recorded a German film "Stalingrad" and it wouldn't fit onto one DVD and the subtitles didn't transfer to the second DVD. My German isn't that great but conversational German moves entirely too fast for me so the whole second DVD is a mystery.

Oh, and I found out the South fought the Civil War over "States Rats" because a movie didn't subtitle the Rebs.

[rwsmith]

The only time I like to hear hokey overdub is when watching bad Kung Fu movies.

[medic15al]

Originally Posted by Marshwheeling

Between my hearing loss and actors who mumble, I need subtitles on everything.

As do I... I am legally deaf and wear 2 hearing aids and over the last few years need caption and subtitles unless it is with one of those old time narrators with flawless annunciation and voice tone.

[Onomea]

Early on in my life in Japan, I watched a movie on TV that featured Charlton Heston as an American Indian speaking Japanese. Now that was a culture shock!!

(Or how about what I think was Woody Allen's first movie, "What's Up, Tiger Lily?" Somehow he acquired the US rights to a Japanese B film, a spy movie, and rewrote the script entirely into English, paying no attention whatsoever to what the orginal script was.)