Settling for subtitles

By Albert Leung, Staff Writer

Movie makers always find the most imaginative ways to depress me. It could be the outcome of a story, a particularly eloquent scene or the actor's portrayal of the character; most movies can find a means to strike me emotionally. Although no matter how beautiful a movie is made, one detail can ruin the experience: dialogue.

Over the past few years I have become a bit of a moving picture enthusiast with particular appreciation for foreign films. I typically watch at least one international film a week (A bit obsessive?). Prior to my foreign film exposure, I was naïve in thinking that the United States made the best movies in the world since very few foreign features played at the local theater. As my thirst for international films grew, I realized my obliviousness and found there were indeed many great stories told in all countries. Along with my international film exposure, I also began to critique how American movie makers portrayed stories and people of other cultures. I recognized that many American films stray from dialogue in foreign languages and impose an English speaking dictum. For me, at least, I'd rather read it in English than have to hear it.

For example, take the two recently released films The Forbidden Kingdom and Valkyrie. The Forbidden Kingdom is a Chinese folktale-like movie and Valkyrie is a German story about a plot to assassinate Hitler. These two films are rooted deeply in each respective culture and country yet both are portrayed predominantly in English dialogue. The English dialogue may not take much away from the storytelling but for me it feels a bit disingenuous. It's kind of like buying a replica Burberry bag. On the surface it looks fine but it still pesters you to know it isn't the real thing.

A few weeks ago, I had a weak moment and watched Jet Li's and Jackie Chan's latest American cinema foray, The Forbidden Kingdom. Li plays the characters “The Silent Monk” and “Monkey King,” while Chan portrays the characters “Lu Yan” and “Old Hop.” When I first saw the movie trailers I was not impressed and somewhat saddened to see where their acting careers have turned. I decided, however, to give it a chance since I grew up watching the two kung fu movie legends flying-kick and kung fu-punch their way into stardom.

Along with the Li and Chan duo, the film also stars Chinese actress Yifei Liu as “Golden Sparrow” and American actor Michael Angarano as the lead character Jason Tripitikas. The Forbidden Kingdom tells a story about a kung fu movie fanatic, Tripitikas, who comes into the possession of a golden staff which belonged to the mythical Chinese character Sun Wukong, otherwise known as Monkey King. Upon possessing the fighting-staff, Tripitikas is inexplicably whisked into ancient China where he is to save Sun Wukong who was imprisoned by an immortal called the Jade Warlord. With him on the journey is a team of martial arts masters played by Li, Chan and Liu.

The Forbidden Kingdom, I must admit, is somewhat entertaining but glaringly lacked consistent dialogue. When the film takes viewers into ancient China, some of the Chinese movie characters inexplicably speak fluent English. For instance, when Lu Yan is introduced in the movie, he is able to fluently converse with Tripitikas in English. Almost as baffled as I am when I see an athletic martial arts move, I thought, “How does he do that?” If there were maybe an explanation as to why or how these characters became so fluent in English, it might have seemed less weird. The characters Silent Monk, Lu Yan and Golden Sparrow spoke to each other mostly in English as well but perhaps that was for Tripitikas' benefit. Why did Tripitikas not magically possess the ability to speak Chinese? Why didn't he pick up the language through his kung fu films? I don't think that would be any more absurd than the way the movie was portrayed.

For me, when the Chinese movie characters of ancient times speak English, the film loses a lot of authenticity in the story. This tale is already quite far-fetched but with more use of the Chinese language, it would have helped its believability rather than mixing English dialogue into the lines so willy-nilly.

I think the movie Valkyrie, starring the enigmatic Tom Cruise, cheats language barriers in the most egregious way. The movie starts with Cruise speaking a few lines in German then the dialogue gradually transitions as the German dialogue fades away and English dialogue gets fed into its place. The remaining movie is in English except for the lines “Heil Hitler” and “Heil mein Führer.”  Despite all the English chatter, every sign and written document in the movie remained in German. The inconsistencies were distracting and I felt it failed to fully communicate the story's seriousness and it was hard to believe that it is based on a true story.

Translations can be lost when subtitling a foreign language film but maintaining a culture's language allows viewers to experience the story in a genuine manner and allows for a truer reflection of the culture that the story is drawn from. Not all American movie makers have fallen into the habit of defaulting into English dialogue. Clint Eastwood, one of the biggest American cinema icons, directed the movie Letters From Iwo Jima which depicted Japan's military stand against America on the island of Iwo Jima, Japan. The movie was a companion piece to the movie Flags of our Fathers and was raved about by many American film critics. It received tremendous reviews from critics and makes me hope that these are the types of films we'll see more often from our film creators.

Despite critical acclaim with nominations and an award from the 2007 Golden Globes, as well as nominations at the 2007 Academy Awards, the movie did not find much commercial success in the United States. Perhaps people are intimidated or annoyed at the idea of reading subtitles during a movie. It is my hope, though, that movies that stand by using foreign languages are the types of movies that will become a staple in American cinema. The United States has always been considered a melting pot, combined of all the world's languages and cultures. It is long overdue these cultures and languages which make America are truly reflected in the American movies.