Foreign Films - Dubbed or Subtitles?

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Ricardodaforce

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The other day I watched a brilliant film called Intocable (Untouchable). It's a real feel-good movie. It's French and I watched it with Spanish subtitles. It got me thinking about foreign films in general, and how I just can't watch a dubbed movie, I always prefer original soundtrack with subtitles.

So, what about you? Are you a dubbed or subtitles person when it comes to foreign movies?

Oh and a recommendation for you. The original version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is much better than the Daniel Craig version :thumbs:
 
I always prefer the original soundtrack too. There's just something very weird about watching a French film with often a different actor dubbing - the original emotion in the voice is just not there. I also like Chinese martial arts films and those feel very strange if spoken in English.

And oh every film without Daniel Craig in it is a better film. He's more wooden than my gate post and I haven't been able to watch a bond film since his first one.
 
zeitghost said:
I always prefer the original soundtrack too. There's just something very weird about watching a French film with often a different actor dubbing - the original emotion in the voice is just not there. I also like Chinese martial arts films and those feel very strange if spoken in English.

And oh every film without Daniel Craig in it is a better film. He's more wooden than my gate post and I haven't been able to watch a bond film since his first one.
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Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Another brilliant foreign language film.
 
City of God is probably my favourite film with subtitles, if you haven't watched it get it on DVD.
 
I have subtitles on just about every film whether it's already spoken in English or any foreign lanugage. But that's only because I'm hard of hearing. :D


(Think I might have missed the point). :lol: :bonk:
 
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Subtitles or perhaps just enjoy the original dialogue...can be entertaining even if you have little our no grasp of the language in question.

Some absolutely brilliant non English language cinema out there, you really should explore
 
Subtitles every time. How could you dub Albin's shrieking in La Cage Aux Folles successfully??

I could do with an English subtitled version of Zazie Dans Le Metro. The version I have is either French subtitles or Dutch. I did A level french but it isn't quite up to it now.

With dubbing you can at least carry on yapping on TP without missing the entire crux of the story which is impossible with subtitled films as you look away for a minute and you're completely lost...
 
Tried to watch Prometheus dubbed in czech with Eng subtitles on you tube the other week ....so bad it was almost painful.

Some dubbing is excellent, some not. Subtitles are ok if I can watch continuously ...sometimes too fast though, do the Spanish talk fast..or more Greek I think ...its like blimey, what did he say, rewind!
 
Forbiddenbiker said:
Tried to watch Prometheus dubbed in czech with Eng subtitles on you tube the other week ....so bad it was almost painful.

Some dubbing is excellent, some not. Subtitles are ok if I can watch continuously ...sometimes too fast though, do the Spanish talk fast..or more Greek I think ...its like blimey, what did he say, rewind!
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Prometheus wasn't shown in original version here, so I had no choice but to watched the dubbed Spanish version. Needless to say I can't wait till the Blu-ray is released next month.
 
I like stuff from MosFilm :) but if Soviet realism isn't your thing, you really should take a look at the gangster action flick of "L'immortel" with Jean Reno. The French really can make the best gritty crime movies!

There's also a staggering array of Chinese films that are awesome too - and not just the old trite kung fu ones either.
 
desantnik said:
you really should take a look at the gangster action flick of "L'immortel" with Jean Reno. The French really can make the best gritty crime movies!
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aka 22 Bullets? great flick.

As for Spanish movies, haven't seen many but the REC trilogy are excellent. Subbed of course :D
 
Subtitles for me. I tend to find watching films dubbed into English an peculiar experience.

srichards said:
I could do with an English subtitled version of Zazie Dans Le Metro. The version I have is either French subtitles or Dutch. I did A level french but it isn't quite up to it now.
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BBC2 have shown it twice in the last 20 years or so, both times with subtitles. The first time was in a season of Nouvelle vague films (would that BBC2 would do similar nowadays, or bring back Moviedrome for that matter). The subtitles are very funny, with deliberate mis-spellings and incorrect words. So there is a subtitled version out there somewhere.
 
Subtitles, always.

If the lipsynch is off or dubbed I find it very distracting. And if it's a European film I'll never improve my limited language skills listening to a dubbed film.

Roll on the BBC4 Autumn schedule and 2 hours of Scandinavian crime drame on a Saturday night..
 
antihero said:
aka 22 Bullets? great flick.
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Yes, was also called 22 Bullets.

I say about this as an example - not every foreign language film has to be artsy or for the intellectual elite only - I encourage you all to go take a look even if your taste is action movies (of which 22 Bullets is absolutely a stonking example of which!)

Go have a look in the foreign film section in HMV.... you will discover all sorts of cool stuff.

For war movies, I suggest the excellent "Brest Fortress" - cracking film, epic piece of history.
 
onomatopoeia said:
Subtitles for me. I tend to find watching films dubbed into English an peculiar experience.



BBC2 have shown it twice in the last 20 years or so, both times with subtitles. The first time was in a season of Nouvelle vague films (would that BBC2 would do similar nowadays, or bring back Moviedrome for that matter). The subtitles are very funny, with deliberate mis-spellings and incorrect words. So there is a subtitled version out there somewhere.
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The English version was either NLA or silly money so I got the Dutch/French one. Just noticed there is a now a Malle boxset on amazon which has the English version in :)
 
a couple of Scandavian films that are deffo worth a mention (apart from the obvious "The Girl With" movies)...Troll Hunter and Rare Imports (you'll never look at santa the same way again)

I saw a dubbed version of Ichi The Killer once, Japanese guys with south london gangster accents is hilarious.
 
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There are good subtitles and poor subtitles.

The best ones are those that add to the feeling of the film:

Scene

It is a winter early morning - frost on the ground and misty. The Camera is on a car in the middle of the road - no people around.

subtitle <silence>
5 seconds
subtitle <utter silence>
5 seconds
subtitle <deathly silence>
5 seconds
suddenly car blows up

talk about building the tension up

better than camera on car and nothing until it blows up.

down-side is that sometimes not every word spoken is subtitled
 
Alastair said:
Roll on the BBC4 Autumn schedule and 2 hours of Scandinavian crime drame on a Saturday night..
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They are showing Italian crime drama at the moment, which I'm rather enjoying.

I have a satellite dish pointing at the one that transmits RAI (Italian state broadcaster) and they show lots of US shows dubbed into Italian. My Italian isn't good enough yet to understand without subtitles though.
 
antihero said:
a couple of Scandavian films that are deffo worth a mention (apart from the obvious "The Girl With" movies)...Troll Hunter and Rare Imports (you'll never look at santa the same way again)
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A couple of other Scandinavian films well worth watching..
onomatopoeia said:
They are showing Italian crime drama at the moment, which I'm rather enjoying.

I have a satellite dish pointing at the one that transmits RAI (Italian state broadcaster) and they show lots of US shows dubbed into Italian. My Italian isn't good enough yet to understand without subtitles though.
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We have a second dish pointing to the Astra cluster at 19.2. That gives us all the German tv channels, and if we wanted them quite a few Polish channels as well. German tv has a long running crime series called Tatort that's very good, and there's usually an episode on one of the channels most nights. It's also very handy for free coverage of the F1 races that the BBC doesn't show, some internationals not on free tv in the UK and for free Eurosport.
 
Only subtitles here. Korean/French/Hong Kong and Spanish films all the way.
 
I watch quite a lot of foreign films and mostly the ones I've bought don't seem to be dubbed. In fact, I think I only actually have one dubbed movie and sadly it's not very well done, flat actors with flat voices.

I wont watch a subtitled film if I'm a bit tired as obviously you have to pay attention to the subtitles but other than that the original soundtrack is probably best.
 
I usually prefer to watch foreign films with the sub titles on, but i recently watched a Norwegian film call "Headhunter", it gave the option of sub titles or english language so i watched the latter, if it was dubbed it was the best dubbing i have ever heard you could not notice it all.

One of the best films i have seen for ages :clap:
 
Groucho said:
I usually prefer to watch foreign films with the sub titles on, but i recently watched a Norwegian film call "Headhunter", it gave the option of sub titles or english language so i watched the latter, if it was dubbed it was the best dubbing i have ever heard you could not notice it all.

One of the best films i have seen for ages :clap:
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:thumbs: I agree with you, Headhunters is great film. Really clever, lots of suspense, dark humour and action. I watched it with subtitles on but as with most good sub-titled films after a while I don't even notice I'm reading them.
 
I have about twenty Japanese films all subtitled wouldn't watch a dubbed one.
 
Did anyone see "The Bridge" earlier in the year? Scandinavian crime drama screened by bbc over 10 parts with subtitles- one of the best things I have ever seen on tv!
 
Having watched the excellent Maison Close on sky arts I'd go with subs every time, it was well photographed and acted, dubbing would have made it a farce
 
The bridge was good if a little weird. Preferred the Killing and that other political one.
 
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