The Ongoing Saga of the Chinese Movie Title List

The Top Five List

The Top 15 Chinese Translations of English Movie Titles
August 25, 1997

15. "Pretty Woman" -- "I Will Marry a Prostitute to Save Money"

14. "Face/Off" -- "Who Is Face Belonging To? I Kill You Again, Harder!"

13. "Leaving Las Vegas" -- "I'm Drunk And You're a Prostitute"

12. "Interview With The Vampire" -- "So, You Are a Lawyer?"

11. "The Piano" -- "Ungrateful Adulteress! I Chop Off Your Finger!"

10. "My Best Friend's Wedding" -- "Help! My Pretend Boyfriend Is Gay!"

9. "George of the Jungle" -- "Big Dumb Monkey-Man Keeps Whacking Tree With Genitals"

8. "Scent of a Woman" -- "Great Buddha! I Can Smell You From Afar! Take a Bath, Will You?!"

7. "Love, Valour, Compassion!" -- "I Am That Guy From Seinfeld So It's Acceptable for Straight People to Enjoy This Gay Movie"

6. "Babe" - "The Happy Dumpling-to-be Who Talks And Solves Agricultural Problems"

5. "Twister" -- "Run! Ruuunnnn! Cloudzillaaaaa!"

4. "Field of Dreams" -- "Imaginary Dead Baseball Players Live in My Cornfield"

3. "Barb Wire" -- "Delicate Orbs of Womanhood Bigger Than Your Head Can Hurt You"

2. "Batman & Robin" -- "Come to My Cave and Wear This Rubber Codpiece, Cute Boy"

...and Top5's #1 Chinese Translation of an English Movie Title...

1. "The Crying Game" -- "Oh No! My Girlfriend Has a Penis!"

This list copyright 1997 by Chris White and Ziff Davis, Inc.
The Top Five List top5@walrus.com http://www.topfive.com
To forward or repost, please include this section.

WILL "MR. CAT POOP" CLEAN UP AT THE BOX OFFICE IN HONG KONG?

by Hal Lipper, Staff Reporter of the Wall Street Journal

HONG KONG -- When it comes to translating movie titles, not every name will do. So Hong Kong's movie distributors have created a cottage industry to rename Hollywood titles for Chinese audiences.

"Major studios think up titles that are flat, boring and don't tell audiences what movies are about," says Doinel Wu, who has spent more than a decade renaming Western movies. "We create titles that are more straightforward."

Hence, the Cantonese title for the film biography "Nixon" is "The Big Liar." The title for "Boogie Nights" can be interpreted as "His Powerful Device Makes Him Famous."

Since many of Hong Kong residents don't know Fargo is a city in snow-blown North Dakota, the movie "Fargo" became "Mysterious Murder in Snowy Cream." The words "snowy cream" are pronounced "fah go" in Cantonese.

The stakes are huge since English-language blockbusters dominate Hong Kong's movie market and Chinese translations help sell the films to a wider audience.

Mr. Wu's title are touted as among the best in the business. For the arty thriller "The Professional," about a killer befriending an orphaned girl, he concocted "This Hit Man Is Not as Cold as He Thought."

"The English Patient" was problematic. Few Hong Kong residents knew of the novel and marketers say a faithful translation, like "The Sick Englishman," wouldn't have drawn audiences. Mr. Wu's title, "Don't Ask Me Who I Am," captured the story's mystery and passion.

"Good Will Hunting" was equally challenging. Mr. Wu's Chinese title, "Bright Sun, Just Like Me," uses characters to imply more than can be said with words. The first half alludes to the Chinese title for "Dead Poet's Society," ("Bright Sun in Heavy Rain") which also starred Robin Williams and was set at a school. The second half denotes a movie for young people who boldly do what they like.

"Titanic" and "Air Force One" needed no translation, distributors decided. But some of the local idioms don't travel well. "The Full Monty," a comedy about six unemployed steelworkers who become strippers, uses a Cantonese colloquialism meaning "Six Stripped Warriors." The Mandarin interpretation is "Six Naked Pigs."

And some translations simply defy rationale. The Hong Kong title for "As Good As It Gets," a comedy about a mean-spirited novelist, is "Mr. Cat Poop." Its distributor declined comment.

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THE TOP 15 CHINESE TRANSLATIONS OF ENGLISH MOVIE TITLES

15. "Pretty Woman" -- "I Will Marry a Prostitute to Save Money"
14. "Face/Off" -- "Who Is Face Belonging To? I Kill You Again, Harder!"
13. "Leaving Las Vegas" -- "I'm Drunk And You're a Prostitute"
12. "Interview With The Vampire" -- "So, You Are a Lawyer?"
11. "The Piano" -- "Ungrateful Adulteress! I Chop Off Your Finger!"
10. "My Best Friend's Wedding" -- "Help! My Pretend Boyfriend Is Gay!"
9. "George of the Jungle" -- "Big Dumb Monkey-Man Keeps Whacking Tree With Genitals"
8. "Scent of a Woman" -- "Great Buddha! I Can Smell You From Afar! Take a Bath, Will You?!"
7. "Love, Valour, Compassion!" -- "I Am That Guy From Seinfeld So It's Acceptable for Straight People to Enjoy This Gay Movie"
6. "Babe" -- "The Happy Dumpling-to-be Who Talks And Solves Agricultural Problems"
5. "Twister" -- "Run! Ruuunnnn! Cloudzillaaaaa!"
4. "Field of Dreams" -- "Imaginary Dead Baseball Players Live in My Cornfield"
3. "Barb Wire" -- "Delicate Orbs of Womanhood Bigger Than Your Head Can Hurt You"
2. "Batman & Robin" -- "Come to My Cave and Wear This Rubber Codpiece, Cute Boy"
1. "The Crying Game" -- "Oh No! My Girlfriend Has a Penis!"

[ This list copyright 1997 by Chris White and Ziff Davis, Inc. ]
[ The Top Five List top5@walrus.com http://www.topfive.com ]
[ To forward or repost, please include this section. ]

Lost, and Gained, in the Translation

One of the reasons that movie studios make so many action pictures is that they do well overseas. There are no translation problems when Bruce Willis is firing an Uzi or fleeing a fireball.

Comedies and dramas are a different story. Comedy, in particular, frequently hangs on the thinnest of cultural threads. But when a comic film takes off, the distributors will do everything possible to push it overseas. Take, for instance, "There's Something About Mary," one of the biggest and silliest movies of the year, starring Cameron Diaz. To foreign audiences, the title was mystifying. So 20th Century Fox renamed the movie country by country.

In Poland, blonde jokes are popular, so the title became, "For the Love of a Blonde." In France, it was, "Mary at All Costs."

Scott Neeson, the executive in charge of foreign distribution at Fox, said Asians prefer literal titles. So in Thailand it became, "My True Love Will Stand All Outrageous Events." In Hong Kong it was called, "Enjoy Yourself in the Game of Love."

That's poetic by the standards of Hong Kong, where the demand for literal descriptions has produced some jarring results. The Cantonese title for "Leaving Las Vegas" translates to "I'm Drunk and You're a Prostitute." "Field of Dreams" was "Imaginary Dead Baseball Players Live in My Cornfield." For truth in advertising, you could not beat the title for "The Crying Game" -- "Oh No! My Girlfriend Has a Penis!"

Occasionally, the Chinese seem to find unintended meanings in American movies. "Interview With the Vampire," for instance, became, "So, You Are a Lawyer."

But there's no arguing with the Chinese take on "Babe": "The Happy Dumpling-To-Be Who Talks and Solves Agricultural Problems." Or "My Best Friend's Wedding": "Help! My Pretend Boyfriend Is Gay." Or "George of the Jungle": "Big Dumb Monkey Man Keeps Whacking Tree With Genitals." Or even "Batman and Robin": "Come to My Cave and Wear this Rubber Codpiece, Cute Boy."

But still, there is that poetic side, as with the Pamela Anderson Lee vehicle called "Barb Wire." The Chinese saw it as "Delicate Orbs of Womanhood Bigger Than Your Head Can Hurt You."

-- James Sterngold

• Interviewed on Online Tonight with David Lawrence, a nationally-syndicated radio show.

• Interviewed on National Public Radio's "Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me" program.

• Article by Brill's Content magazine, scheduled for their February/March '99 issue.

• Articles in online magazines such as Salon and Suck

• Interviewed on Geek Radio, a nationally-syndicated show.

• Corrections, retractions, laugh-at-the-Times articles in numerous papers.

• And the following article, from the front page of the Washington Post's Style section...

Titles Too Bad To Be True

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 4, 1998; Page F01

It was a cute item in the New York Times Week in Review section, a peek at some of the wacky titles slapped on American movies in Asia. In Hong Kong, the article last month said, "Leaving Las Vegas" somehow became "I'm Drunk and You're a Prostitute." In China, "George of the Jungle" turned into "Big Dumb Monkey Man Keeps Whacking Tree With Genitals." "My Best Friend's Wedding" was "Help! My Pretend Boyfriend Is Gay." "Batman and Robin" sounded less than swashbuckling: "Come to My Cave and Wear This Rubber Codpiece, Cute Boy."

Some titles obliterated the taste barrier. The Pamela Anderson Lee flick "Barb Wire" was said to have been marketed in China as "Delicate Orbs of Womanhood Bigger Than Your Head Can Hurt You." And there was this Hong Kong knee-slapper: "The Crying Game" emerged as "Oh No! My Girlfriend Has a Penis!"

But the joke was on Times reporter James Sterngold and his editors. These outlandish titles were spoofs that first appeared in August on a Web site called TopFive.com. "Rolling on the floor laughing!" TopFive contributor Doug Johnson said by e-mail.

Sterngold says he was skeptical at the outset. He says Scott Neeson, the executive in charge of foreign distribution at Fox, sent him a legitimate Wall Street Journal clip about creative foreign titles -- and attached a list of the wild ones.

"I said, 'These are kind of outrageous. Are these for real?' He said yes," Sterngold recalled from Los Angeles. "I made a mistake. I should have checked each of these out."

A Fox staffer confirmed that Neeson had sent the satiric list but said he thought it was part of the Journal article. Sterngold, though, says it was his responsibility, not Neeson's. "It's embarrassing," he said. "I'm disappointed and depressed. If it was hard news, I probably would have been more vigilant. But it was a light item."

The New York Times
Sunday, December 6, 1998
Week in Review -- Section 4, Page 2
"Correction"

A brief article on Nov. 15 about the strange things that happen to American movie titles in translation included nine examples erroneously.

The nine -- translations for "Leaving Las Vegas," "Field of Dreams," "The Crying Game," "Interview With the Vampire," "Babe," "My Best Friend's Wedding," "George of the Jungle," "Batman and Robin" and "Barb Wire" -- were not real releases but spoofs; they appeared on an Internet mailing list and Web site (www.topfive.com) devoted to comedy and edited by Chris White.

Peter Jennings
ABC World News Tonight
Tuesday, January 5, 1999

"And finally, the new title for Babe reminds us that in China the communists are still in charge. Babe is now The Happy Dumpling-to-be Who Talks and Solves Agricultural Problems."

Peter Jennings
ABC World News Tonight
Monday, January 18, 1999

"And a correction is in order. Recently we reported how some American movie titles were translated for audiences in China. We got one of them wrong.

"The title for the film Babe was not actually The Happy Dumpling-to-be Who Talks and Solves Agricultural Problems. For that, it turns out credit goes to a Web site -- TopFive.com. The real title for Chinese movie-goers was I May Be A Pig, But I'm Not Stupid.

"As the Chinese might say, [translation not available]."