Films & TV: Mad about English

Mad about English is an excellent documentary about the frenzied rush to learn English in Beijing before the Olympic Games. This film, which I watched last week, features lots of Chinese people struggling to speak English and lots of awkward foreigners struggling to understand them. Another highlight is the story of a Beijing taxi driver, which throws some light on the pre-Olympic "all taxi drivers will be sacked if they can't speak English" rumour.

I would like to see a follow-up documentary, which asks the stars of Mad about English if they thought it was all worth it. "Did they actually have any decent conversations?" "Are foreigners actually worth speaking to?" ...

Films and TV: The Translation of Nanking

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Chinese subtitle writers – dodgy characters

Whoever was in charge of the Chinese subtitles on my fake version of Nanking might be forgiven for the extra adjectives sneaked in throughout this stirring account of Japan’s 1937 occupation of China’s former capital. However, by the time the film reaches its emphatic conclusion the translator seems to have lost it altogether - new meaning is given to the idea of putting words in somebody’s mouth.

In one such example, the Chinese characters appearing at the top of the screen tell a very different story to the actor's reading of English diary excerpts written by an American missionary stationed in Nanking at the time. His description of a Japanese man’s request to retract statements about what he saw of the atrocities is “translated” as the Japanese government’s denial of any wrongdoing in Nanking. He ends by saying: “[the Japanese man] intimated to me that it would be best if I did so [retract the statements].” Anyone relying on the Mandarin subtitles would have taken the kind-hearted missionary to have meant: “对我而言, 日本就是狗东西- If you ask me, Japan is a country of dogs”.

If the subtitling on our beloved pirate DVDs cannot be trusted, just what are we to believe in China?

Films and TV: Lust, Caution

My recommendations for films that Mandarin-learning laowai might otherwise have missed.

A spy thriller shot in wartime Shanghai, this was the first Chinese film that I have seen where I could not predict the ending. Lust, Caution is fantastic.

Also, meet my new obsession: Lust, Caution’s lead actress, Tang Wei. Even gratuitous hairy armpit shots of the tormented lead role – a girl caught up in a murder plot - failed to put me off this gorgeous and utterly convincing actress.

Admittedly, I didn’t know what was going on at first – a few rapid dialogues and conversations in both Shanghainese and Cantonese left several gaps in my understanding. However, after a while I had no trouble following the story. 

Ask for 色，戒 Sè, Jiè. Chinese: Medium.

The words “Lust, Caution” are a pun, its meaning lost in its English translation and, horror of horrors, lost on me, in either language. "Se" means "colour" as well as "lust"; "Jie" means both "ring" and "caution". So, not only could the title mean "Lust, Caution", it could mean “coloured ring” - a reference to the diamond ring in the film. 

Films and TV: Two sets of Three Kingdoms

My recommendations for films that Mandarin-learning laowai might have otherwise missed.

Released in 2008, these two da pian both describe events in the novel Three Kingdoms. However, similarities do not end there: I neither understood, nor enjoyed either film.

Hopefully I can be forgiven for not quite knowing what was going on: the dialogue is pretty classical. As for the makers of these two films, they should not be as easily let off the hook - in my opinion Three Kingdoms and Red Cliff are little more than spectacular wastes of money.

Red Cliff: 赤壁, Chìbì; Three Kingdoms: 三国之见龙卸甲，Sānguó zhī xiàn lóng xiè jiă 

Chinese: DIFFICULT

Films and TV: CJ7

The story of a poor migrant worker and his son and the chaos that ensues after the discovery of a bizarre alien "pet": CJ7.

The best thing about this film was that I understood the Chinese, easily. 

As your DVD man for 长江七号; (Cháng Jiāng qī hào).

Chinese: EASY