February 15, 2008
In my ever so humble opinion, the title of this post should be conveyed in the tone and manner of Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest, when she expressed her displeasure with some wire hangers. Loud and threatening. With just a tinge of hysteria and and a whiff of madness.
Dubbing is for me currently what colorization was during the 1980s-1990s. It's terrible, needless and ruins the film. (Though this does not mean that I have given up my hatred for colorization. Constant vigilance!) Allow me to explain my burgeoning distaste for dubbing.
I have a number of channels included in my cable package. In fact, I'm sure a number of parental units (certainly mine) would sigh heavily and shake their heads over the number of channels included, but add throwing their hands up in the air in despair over the cost of what I pay for said cable package. There are a number of channels I even forget about. One of these is AZN: The Network for Asian America. It does a combination of Korean, Chinese and Indian programming (possibly Japanese as well, though I'm less sure about this).
Back when all my channels were bright and shiny, I made a point of checking in sporadically to see what Hindi movies they were showing on AZN. And then, over a weekend, I discovered they were showing a marathon of a South Korean mini-series/soap opera, Dae Jang Geum (Jewel in the Palace is its common English title). I stumbled upon it during the middle of its 51 episodes, and despite the fact that it was in Korean, with Chinese (presumably) subtitles, I was sufficiently drawn into the story--and trying to figure out what the characters were saying. Dae Jang Geum is the story of the first female royal physician in 16th century Korea. I really enjoyed the episodes I was able to watch, but since I had come into the middle of it, and for some reason missed the end, have always wanted to watch it in its entirety. Since none of my four libraries--yes, 4! own it-- and neither does Netflix and I'm not so enamored of it that I want to buy it, I occasionally check back to see if it's showing on AZN. So far no luck. However, during my most recent search I saw that they had shown a Korean film, Gamunui yeonggwang (Marrying the Mafia). The synopsis sounded silly and cute and since AZN wasn't showing it again, and Netflix had it, I decided to rent it.
Bad decision. It came and I became intensely irritated within 2 minutes of watching it and ultimately had to stop watching it. Because of the dubbing--though I suspect there were other areas of the production that I would have found lacking. All the dialogue had been dubbed into English. It's just wrong! And more to the point completely unnecessary. I understand that there are those who feel that subtitles are even more disruptive in a film, in that having to read the words on the screen detracts being able to watch the action on the screen. However, when the words coming out of a character's mouth do not match the movement of that character's mouth, I find that even more disruptive. Plus the translation is never perfect, and while this holds true for subtitles, at least you have the knowledge that the words the screenwriter wrote are actually in the film. For a while I toyed with the idea that perhaps it was done it a rather convoluted homage to the films of Bruce Lee, when the dubbing was horribly (and hilariously) mismatched with the character's mouth action. But frankly, it was too well done in Marrying the Mafia.
Now, you may want to take smug satisfaction in the knowledge that the US film industry does not dub foreign films. Try holding onto that satisfaction when I point out that instead they have gotten into the habit of remaking the entire film. A lot of them are Asian horror films, and most seem to star Sarah Michelle Gellar, though the one currently out in theaters is The Eye, starring Jessica Alba and is a remake of a Chinese film, Gin Gwai. Frankly, the whole situation is completely unsatisfactory. Come, rail against it with me!
Though, save some energy for the fight against panning and scanning of films broadcast on network and basic cable television. Once more into the fray!
