Sinophile Cinema

We watched an interesting Chinese movie last night called "Full Moon in New York" about three Chinese women who have moved to the big apple. One is from the mainland, one from Hong Kong and one from Taiwan. The script is actually pretty half-baked, but the three actresses (including the sublime Maggie Cheung) and the cinematography make it work. You get a real sense of gritty New York where the beautiful life is just out of reach.

BUT!

What was totally hilarious was the subtitles. The movie was in both English and Mandarin (and occassionally Cantonese) with two complete sets of subtitles. However, the English subtitles did not match the spoken English, suggesting that a Chinese translator wrote them from a version of the movie where the English had been dubbed over.

While this was merely curious, hilarity ensued when one of the women, an aspiring actress, auditioned for the role of Lady Macbeth. The subtitle writer apparently didn't recognize Shakespeare's famous scene and wrote out the dialogue as if it were a Sam Shepard play:

"Out damn spot! Out I say. One -- two -- why, then 'tis time to do't. Hell is murky -- Fie, my lord, fie!"

...was translated as:

"Shit! Damn blood stain! Damn it! One two spot. So we can go ahead now. It's so dark in hell. Shit! Holy shit!"

Sometimes globalization resembles a game of Broken Telephone.