Stoatie: The dub was for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was very deliberately different from the sub. Ang Lee recognised that dubbing was going to be inevitable in some markets and so he wanted to make it as good as possible. A lot of time and effort was made to construct dialogue that appeared to match the movements of the mouth as closely as possible, which if you think about it is practically an impossible task from Mandarin to English. I quite like that kind of pragmatic approach from a filmmaker, it reminds me of Murakami's stance on the retranslation of his novels and short stories from English into other European languages: not ideal, but then we don't live in an ideal world.
Much of my thinking about subs vs dubs as it relates to foreign cartoons (specifically anime) can be found here:
- Never underestimate the value of decent voice acting. It's one of the least mentioned aspects in anime criticism and in my opinion one of the most important for characterisation. In Japan there are courses set up, even whole academies I believe I heard, for this discipline. If you've never focused on this side of things then try watching a few episodes of Azumanga Daioh in order to get a sense of what a difference it makes. I'm talking specifically about the high school girl characters, but you could equally apply it to the teachers. Contrast the deliveries of the actors; Tomoko Kaneda's energy and innocence as Chiyo; Chieko Higuchi's bluster and deranged shouting as Tomo; Rie Tanaka's seriousness and irritability as Yomi; Yu Asakawa's hesitancy and shyness as Sakaki; Yuki Matsuoka's incredible transparency, vagueness and detachment as Osaka; Houko Kuwashima's tomboyishness and intensity as Kagura. Each nails it and the differences between their work is striking.
To capture a character when all you have to work with is your voice is an extraordinary gift, and one that is rarely given the attention it deserves in animation from much of the rest of the world. Where would Evangelion be without Megumi Ogata and Megumi Hayashibara's frankly terrifying performances for Shinji Ikari and Rei Ayanami respectively? A lot of animation adds a couple of named stars on to boost the profile of the film, but seldom can they convey anything like the range of someone who has dedicated themselves to the craft.
The dub of Evangelion was an abomination, by the way. Let us never speak of it again.
- Many anime titles add a lot of extraneous material in their dubbed incarnations. The Studio Ghibli dubs are particularly guilty of this. Extra exposition or goofing around is added when character's mouths are not immediately in shot. This not only detracts from the economy of the piece (in a lot of anime, less is more), it can also destroy important story and character moments.
Take Spirited Away, for example. In the subtitled version Chihiro sees the dragon from the balcony being chased by the paper birds. Instinctively she calls out to it as Haku, and then does a double take as she realises that there's no way she could possibly have known it was him. It speaks volumes for the bond between the two and Chihiro's growing sensitivity and the changes that have taken place in her since she has come to the bath house, how she has become acclimatised to that world. However, in the dub when Haku leaves her much earlier in the film she looks up, sees him flying off as a dragon and says something along the lines of, "Oh, Haku is also a dragon," as though she were a witness to the transformation.
- Some things take a lot longer to say in English, some things take longer to say in Japanese. When the movement of a character's mouth is in shot you have a finite amount of time to get the lines in, and often English voice actors have to go through a lot of verbal gymnastics in order to make what they're doing synch to the animation. This might also be noticeable in the placing of emotional stress of the delivery is in each line and how that tallies with facial expressions, as it will come typically in different places in a sentence than it will in the Japanese original. As a result the characterisation of the animation may not match the characterisation of the voice acting. This pulls you straight out the moment and ruins believability.
- It generally doesn't matter how much you put on screen with subs, although sometimes they have to move pretty quickly to get everything in (see FLCL for pretty much the ultimate example) you can usually trust that it's accurate to what is being said. Well, as much as any translation can be said to be accurate. Of course, you'll miss out on the puns. Different translations differ in accuracy and potency: I still wish that my copy of that episode of Evangelion used the word 'rape' as I originally saw it on the fansubbed VCD rather than the considerably weaker 'defile.'
Some fansubs are excellent in this respect, coming with all sorts of explanatory notes for some terms, or exposition on cultural references with which a Western audience will be less familiar. I've seen various translations of Bleach, for example, and while I can't remember which translator gives all the footnotes I have to say it greatly enhances the experience. It was really interesting in my copies of Eureka Seven to notice that the translation for some words (specifically regarding the Coralians) changed as the series progressed and the fansubbers cottoned onto the official English versions of certain terms. It actually added quite a lot, as each correction seemed like a narrative reveal, in that once the correct term became clear there was a dawning realisation, "Oh, that was what was going on."
One situation where subs can be difficult is when there are two or sometimes three vocals at once. There's one scene in Death and Rebirth (later added back into an episode on the Evangelion Platinum Editions) where there's dialogue from three sources simultaneously and the screen fills with subs. When this happens it's important that each is consistently in a different place on screen or in a different colour or font. Subs without outlines, or white on a white background are also incredibly frustrating. This also applies when there are different kinds of dialogue, say there might be voiceover narration in the same scene as dialogue, or characters speaking over a tannoy or communications device at the same time as characters who aren't (my copies of Eureka Seven did well with this using different fonts). Although you can have some fun with this, see the Haruhi Suzumiya thread for some of my speculation on how this series subverts the notion that voiceover is always a separate thing to dialogue. |
