The Bride With White Hair (Eureka) - October 26th 2020

[HoldenCarver]

It's a tricky line to tread, translation. Personally, the line I think is best to tread is somewhere down the middle; accuracy is good, but it's also good to know when to translate the intent rather than the literal words.

The example I always fall back to is a joke in the manga Yotsuba&!, where the main character makes a 'robot' out of cardboard boxes. Because of licence changes, this has been published by two different publishers in English. In one, the translator goes for the intent and renders the name of the robot as 'Cardbo'. The reader (or at least, this reader) immediate laughs at the joke. In the other, the translator renders the name as 'Danbo' and explains in a translators note that it means a cardboard robot. The immediacy of the joke is gone, and instead of an actual laugh, there's just a thought of "Oh, I see how that's supposed to be funny."

So while I am in theory all for accuracy first, I find that in reality I'm not above moving away from accuracy if its needed to make the translation hit on an emotional level rather than an intellectual level. At the end of the day, both manga and films are entertainment media to be enjoyed rather than intellectual works to be studied. To a certain extent, understanding and enjoyment should be immediate, not something one has to put together after the fact through translators notes.

I realise, however, that my middle way views are always the most popular. Back in the late '90s/early '00s I was asked to help a scanlation group, but was very quickly frozen out when I took the literal translations and made them sound natural in English - turned out what they really wanted was someone to just do simple spelling and grammar checks on the translations but otherwise leave them untouched, no matter how stilted they may sound, or how little sense they may have made without notes.

I would've minded less if it hadn't been for the fact that the manga was set in Europe, and they were preferring literal translations of the Japanese translation for European terms instead of the actual (arguably more accurate) European terms XD.

But I digress. The short of it is: translation is complicated work; there are many approaches, and all of them are arguably right in some way or other; the translator is effective a co-writer in their own right; and you can't please everyone.

I suppose the only shame when it comes to films is that you're stuck with the title track on the disc, pretty much. Whereas at least with, say, Greek classics, if I don't like one publisher's translation I can go out and buy another edition instead.

[reason108]

As the watcher of the film, I am wanting accurate subs but they should also be respectful of the source material. It's disgusting when you have a period film like this and there's modern slang thrown-about. Not even really a fan of British-isms or American-isms; just make it faithful to what is being said as best as possible within reason. Thankfully, the subs for Bride were great; there might have only been one instance of an British-ism. I have the old Tai Seng dvd and the HK blu-ray if I want to see other interpretations. But, as is, Eureka is now my "go-to" release.

[agent999]

Originally Posted by Yami

I got this on a whim and it is a gorgeous release. I didn't love the film, but I certainly liked it enough to watch the sequel if it's ever available.

I'd love to see Eureka release some earlier Hong Kong films, particularly Ann Hui's Boat People and Spooky Bunch but also Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind, The Sword and Jumping Ash

Dangerous Encounters would never see an uncut release in the UK so I doubt that any distributor would bother.

[Liersi]

Originally Posted by HoldenCarver

It's a tricky line to tread, translation. Personally, the line I think is best to tread is somewhere down the middle; accuracy is good, but it's also good to know when to translate the intent rather than the literal words.

The example I always fall back to is a joke in the manga Yotsuba&!, where the main character makes a 'robot' out of cardboard boxes. Because of licence changes, this has been published by two different publishers in English. In one, the translator goes for the intent and renders the name of the robot as 'Cardbo'. The reader (or at least, this reader) immediate laughs at the joke. In the other, the translator renders the name as 'Danbo' and explains in a translators note that it means a cardboard robot. The immediacy of the joke is gone, and instead of an actual laugh, there's just a thought of "Oh, I see how that's supposed to be funny."

So while I am in theory all for accuracy first, I find that in reality I'm not above moving away from accuracy if its needed to make the translation hit on an emotional level rather than an intellectual level. At the end of the day, both manga and films are entertainment media to be enjoyed rather than intellectual works to be studied. To a certain extent, understanding and enjoyment should be immediate, not something one has to put together after the fact through translators notes.

I realise, however, that my middle way views are always the most popular. Back in the late '90s/early '00s I was asked to help a scanlation group, but was very quickly frozen out when I took the literal translations and made them sound natural in English - turned out what they really wanted was someone to just do simple spelling and grammar checks on the translations but otherwise leave them untouched, no matter how stilted they may sound, or how little sense they may have made without notes.

I would've minded less if it hadn't been for the fact that the manga was set in Europe, and they were preferring literal translations of the Japanese translation for European terms instead of the actual (arguably more accurate) European terms XD.

But I digress. The short of it is: translation is complicated work; there are many approaches, and all of them are arguably right in some way or other; the translator is effective a co-writer in their own right; and you can't please everyone.

I suppose the only shame when it comes to films is that you're stuck with the title track on the disc, pretty much. Whereas at least with, say, Greek classics, if I don't like one publisher's translation I can go out and buy another edition instead.

I feel you. My approach has always been what you describe, and it's been met with the same resentment you describe. I've been fascinated with not just the practice, but the theories behind translation since my uni days for this reason. You can read words in all of these discussions like "accuracy", "literal", "interpretive", all used as if these terms meant the same thing to all people. They don't. Accurate to what standard? What's a literal translation? You mean word for word? That's literal. Of course you don't. But then what's interpretive? It's interpretive even before you stop substituting word for word, because the choice of the word is an interpretation. Languages don't work like dictionaries, there's not a right word for every word. All translation is inevitably interpretive, and there is no literal or accurate translation. Accurate, correct, literal or other terms claiming objective precision really have little use in a discussion about translation. All they do is undermine the real discussion about different subjective standards and interpretations by pretending they don't exist, or there's an objective alternative. There isn't.

That being said, any interpretation is based on an understanding. And that can be wrong. That's the one thing in translation which can be objectively wrong. Rendering this understanding in another language is art, not science.

Edited to give an example: last night I watched The Master with Jet Li. There's a scene where he learns how to drive a car. He hops behind the wheel, turns to his teacher for instruction on how to begin, and she says "hoi ce" in Cantonese, or "kai che" in Mandarin. The subs say "Start the car". I mention this because I know Mandarin and not Cantonese, so even that may be different. "kai" or "hoi" can be used in the sense of starting a machine, or beginning something. With car it can also mean drive. My interpretation from looking at his surprised face: she doesn't tell him to start the car, she tells him to drive. "Now what?" "Drive!". Is it wrong understanding or just different interpretation? Without asking the author what they meant, it's not clear. Welcome to translation. Oh, and the literal substitution would be "Open the car". Open the car, Jet. That's literal translation.

[johnpaul2]

Originally Posted by psychik

I'm waiting my blu ray. Is the framing (aspect ratio) correct ?

Remember that framing and AR are not exactly the same thing. The movie can be 2.35 but the content inside this 2.35 framing can be incorrectly extracted from the filmstock used for the restoration, resulting with either misframing, stretching or squeezing (or a combination of those).

Originally Posted by Markgway

I'm well aware that every sub file I've done contains at least one annoying error, a bunch of little ones, and could be improved upon revision.

The one thing I learnt from doing some subtitles is that no matter how many times I check them, the final disc will still end up with a typo or a punctuation issue or a translation I'll finally find something better for. It's annoying as hell because it feels like I didn't work well enough no matter what.

[chen lung]

Originally Posted by johnpaul2

The one thing I learnt from doing some subtitles is that no matter how many times I check them, the final disc will still end up with a typo or a punctuation issue or a translation I'll finally find something better for. It's annoying as hell because it feels like I didn't work well enough no matter what.

Grammarly can be good for highlighting punctuation and grammar errors. Although great when in a rush, it should be used in conjunction with full human checks (it can't get everything).

Would recommend to anyone doing subtitle work.

[chen lung]

To make it easier for subtitle artists, it would be very useful if scripts could be produced in which dialogue is transcribed into respective languages (e.g. 'Once Upon a Time in China 3' would have written forms of English, Cantonese, Mandarin, and Russian) and explanations provided; this would help avoid misinterpretations when producing SDH or standard translations.

It’s not the best example, but a script we received for the Golden Harvest English version of 'The Young Master' provides explainers (e.g. objects; situations) and definitions (for colloquialisms, etc.):

[drobswim13]

Originally Posted by agent999

Dangerous Encounters would never see an uncut release in the UK so I doubt that any distributor would bother.

is the negative of the uncut version even still available? While UK may not see it uncut, would be very nice to have the 2 cuts of the film in a single release.

[agent999]

Originally Posted by drobswim13

is the negative of the uncut version even still available? While UK may not see it uncut, would be very nice to have the 2 cuts of the film in a single release.

I don't think so. The reconstruction of the director's cut on the French DVD uses inserts from Tsui Hark's vidoetape.

[drobswim13]

Originally Posted by Futurhythm

I feel like there might be more interest in Ann Hui now with all the buzz she's been getting this year: Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement and Keep Rolling, the documentary about her. I would love to be able to just see Spooky Bunch. Fingers crossed the HKFA will restore it like they did with The Secret. I do know they have a print of it...

This would make me beyond happy. I feel that her old catalog (minus the Vietnamese trilogy, I guess) is just not as well known as other HK directors of similar ilk. Everything about her needs to be restored. Would love to hear new commentaries on her older works, as well.

[spannick]

i couldn't resist to check it, and as expected, the old audio commentary on the new Blu has the stereo channels still wrong and is out of synch

the useless 5.1 track also has the channels reversed wrong. Just check Brigitte throwing the sword away at 78 mins; how hard can it be to check that when testing? lol really.

the important original 2.0 track is correct, thankfully. (Mandarin and English are Mono)

Video encode is nice, although very much darker than any version ever seen before by me. Comparison folks will surely show it soon to us.

[The Mole]

Originally Posted by spannick

i couldn't resist to check it, and as expected, the old audio commentary on the new Blu has the stereo channels still wrong and is out of synch

the useless 5.1 track also has the channels reversed wrong. Just check Brigitte throwing the sword away at 78 mins; how hard can it be to check that when testing? lol really.

Two more reasons perhaps to do a replacement. Let's hope Eureka gets word of this, too.

[Parsifal]

Originally Posted by Markgway

I can't comment on Throwdown, as I didn't care for the movie when I saw it many moons ago, but I suspect you're on the money with regards to why Frank's translations differ. He's looking at it from an American viewpoint and is presumably thinking "what will suit Americans best". I'm not trying to be insulting when I say this, but less discerning viewers tend to prefer the "dumbed-down" approach, so I fully understand WHY Frank does it that way. He knows his audience. But I'm thinking that with this new wave of fan subs we can do it better and hopefully get fans used to expecting more from translations with regards to accuracy and detail. Yes, mistakes will be made along the way... but not for want of trying.

I am not sure "dumbed-down" was what Frank was trying to achieve--I think "concise" may be more accurate. He's trying to get the point across with as few words as possible so that the targeted demographics (i.e. American audiences) have time to read the lines and look at the image on screen, especially when the characters talk fast (and Cantonese can be a very "fast" language). I have heard many of my Asian-film loving American friends talk about how they couldn't catch up with the subs because they were either too long or didn't appear on the screen long enough.

I just read Dr. Svet Atanasov's review of the Blu-Ray and while he gave high marks for the release, he made quite a few notable mistakes/omissions--He completely forgot to mention Audio Commentary three which was the David Wu interview with Frank, misspelled Richard Yuen's last name, and incorrectly referred to Frank as a former producer/critic. He's one of the producers of this Blu-ray (He was listed as such on the booklet) and while he was the marketing honcho at Tai Seng, he was never a critic

[johnpaul2]

Originally Posted by spannick

the old audio commentary on the new Blu has the stereo channels still wrong

Not saying there isn't an issue with this, but what is the impact on an audio commentary of having wrong stereo channels (I would have expected it to be 2.0 dual mono though).

[Parsifal]

Originally Posted by spannick

i couldn't resist to check it, and as expected, the old audio commentary on the new Blu has the stereo channels still wrong and is out of synch

the useless 5.1 track also has the channels reversed wrong. Just check Brigitte throwing the sword away at 78 mins; how hard can it be to check that when testing? lol really.

the important original 2.0 track is correct, thankfully. (Mandarin and English are Mono)

Video encode is nice, although very much darker than any version ever seen before by me. Comparison folks will surely show it soon to us.

But wasn't the 5.1 track mixed from the original 2.0 track (which was also on the Tai Seng DVD)?

[grim_tales]

I've never seen this movie, but the review on this site names one of the clans/groups as Wu-Tang Clan, really? I assume that's whhat the rap group was named after?

[latehong]

Originally Posted by grim_tales

I've never seen this movie, but the review on this site names one of the clans/groups as Wu-Tang Clan, really? I assume that's whhat the rap group was named after?

Actually, Wu Tang or Wudang clan is one of the most frequently appeared martial arts clan in the whole wuxia genre. It's basically the Taoist counterpart of the Shaolin temple, and like Shaolin, it's based upon the actual Taoist culture around the actual place, Wudang Mountains in China. In fact, the hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan is named after the 1983 Hong Kong martial arts film Shaolin and Wu Tang, directed by and starring Gordon Liu.

[grim_tales]

That's interetsing, thank you I didn't know that

[Killer Meteor]

Originally Posted by The Mole

Two more reasons perhaps to do a replacement. Let's hope Eureka gets word of this, too.

I'd say the latter should an excuse not to entertian unecessary remixes!

[spannick]

Originally Posted by Parsifal

But wasn't the 5.1 track mixed from the original 2.0 track (which was also on the Tai Seng DVD)?

no. from the original M&E Tracks more likely, which must have had the wrong channels delivered and nobody noticed...