Sub that shit up!:

Being a geek I often wander into the land of foreign celluoid. Places where most of the ears of my clan (North America) have hardly ever set eardrums upon. The land where semblance of language graces our minds..but more importantly our souls. I'm not saying I'm the expert on foreign films, because my history is piddly short. Hell, I could probably count only up to 20 films that were NOT french versions of an North American English Language films, let alone films outside of Hong Kong flicks and anime. However despite the small atom sized list, I still know what I like. That is...

"SUB THAT SHIT UP!"

It's kinda obvious why the hell dubs of any foreign film potentially sucks. The mere mention of "Dub" sends shivers up my spine let alone brings my brain to meltdown even if I tried to listen to it. And of course here are my main reasons.

1. It's like photocopying. It's like this....Character in movie ----->copied/acted by------>Foreign actor------>copied by------>cheaply hired voice actor with no job.

So it's basically a copy...of a copy. Of course a copy of a copy isn't exactly the most pristine representation of the original content. Not to mention the fact that sometimes adaptions had to be made in order to "synch" up with the lip movement. Which leads me to #2.

2. It's a different culture. Sometimes the fact that comedy in a different language should be left as so. Much like swearing. A French person could say "Pass the fucking Peas" to his mom, but the second they say "Tavernack", out comes daddy's belt and mommy's rolling pin. Pure comic gold.

This is especially true of anime since sometimes cultural attributes such as Japanese girl characters having incredibly high pictched squeaky voices could in fact fit perfectly in a unknown Japanese language context, yet decrease my happiness level expotentially when done in a language I understand. I think at the same time it deals with not ONLY reading the sub-title which in effect is totallly different than listening to it in english, but the fact that in that culture this Japanese glass shattering squeakiness both "fits" in that culture AND is pure first copy emotion to human heart...not the mind. There's no words for being excited or extremely pissed off while blood is spewing out of the arm that was oh so stylishly hacked off. The only qualm really is the whole concentration of a sub film is upon the lower half of the film. Nearly 60% of your attention is upon those wonderful white words, explaining in literary detail what exactly the fuck is going on.

On that note, the only two good dubs I have the pleasure of hearing are

Ghost in the Shell: I cannot emphasize this enough. It might be the fact that I saw Ghost in the Shell in english first, but to tell the truth, this is possibly on the best dubs ever. It could be the fact that there isn't any tongue in cheek Anime humor like bleeding noses or Super Deformed characters running around what looks like table legs with small balls (psst...it's feet people) following it whilst floating hypnotically rampant along the screen. It's a drama/action so what must be covered is how intense said drama is and it is done to a T. Considering the need to justifiably synch up the lips and dialogue even further amazes me. But the fact that sometimes there aren't even lip movements and there is almost 1/3 of the movie done "in transmission" makes it's a easier job.

Brotherhood of the Wolf: It's a French film...with english accents for dubs. It's actually not too bad. Why? Well with French and English being pretty close in both words and pronouciation, not to mention the actual cultures being more similar than say....a Anime from a completely different culture, it's fits well. This is actually a dub where I didn't actually think...."This is a dub". Not too bad, but then again not too great.

I'll sub you later!