Everyone who knows Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese or any other dialect) knows that learning or reading it liter ally will lead to ridiculous situations, for example my husband asked me about a cartoon “Smart and stupid uncle“. I could only do a ‘huh-face’ and ask him about the details. “You know, the one in the old times when a guy moved his legs to drive his car?’. Yup, That’s “The Flinstones“. It’s not the only example of how creative Chinese translators can be, check some of them!

American Beauty

Hong Kong: 美麗有罪 – “Beauty is a crime”

Taiwan: 美國心玫瑰情 – “Heart of America (American Heart) Love of rose”

China: 美國麗人 – “American pretty human” – quite close to the original title.

Being John Malkovich

Taiwan: 傀儡人生 – “Puppet’s life”

The Cider House Rules

Hong Kong: 總有驕陽 – “Always have sunshine”

Taiwan: 心塵往事 – “The past hidden in a heart”

The Green Mile

Hong Kong & Taiwan: 綠里奇跡 – “Green miracle path”

The Insider

Hong Kong: 奪命煙幕 – “Lethal lie”

Taiwan: 驚暴內幕 – “Scary secret”

Magnolia

Hong Kong: 人生交叉剔 – literally “Life cross’ and checks” less literally “Crossroads of life”. Cross and check can also mean right and wrong so just pick the title yourself 🙂

Taiwan: 心靈角落 – “Corner in a heart”

The Sixth Sense

Hong Kong: 鬼眼 – “Ghost eye”

Taiwan: 靈異第六感 – “Spiritual sixth sense” like “Sixth sense” by itself wasn’t good enough.

Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (personally my favourite one)

Taiwan: 王牌大間諜二部曲：時空賤諜007 – “Ace Big Spy Second Chapter: Time Traveling Cheap Spy 007”. Imagine saying that title going to the cinema with your date.

Boys Don’t Cry

Hong Kong: 沒哭聲的抉擇 – “A choice without crying”

Taiwan: 男孩別哭 – “Little boys don’t cry”

The End of the Affair

Hong Kong: 激情妒火線 – this title has a sound joke in it which 90% of us cannot get – first two words mean “Passionate”, third one means ‘Jealousy’ but it also has a sound that combines with two last words and means ‘fuse’ that will make bomb explode. Still not funny.

Taiwan: 愛情的盡頭 – “The end of a relationship”

Girl, Interrupted

Hong Kong: 我有(mou)問題 – “I have/don’t have problem”

Taiwan: 女生向前走 – “Girls go forward” or “Go, girls!”

The Hurricane

Hong Kong: 黑罪風云 – “Black crime wind and cloud” Wind and cloud also together mean ‘storm’.

Taiwan: 捍衛正義 – “Preserved justice”.

Matrix

Hong Kong: 二十二世紀殺人網絡 – “22th century murder network”

Taiwan: 駭客任務 – “A hacking mission”

China: 黑客帝國 – “A hacking empire”

The Mummy

Hong Kong 盜墓迷城 – “Stealing grave lost city”

Taiwan: 神鬼傳奇 – “God and ghost legend”

Music of the Heart

Hong Kong: 弦動我心 – “Touching my heart”

Taiwan: 心靈真愛 – “Spiritual true love”

Sleepy Hollow

Hong Kong: 無頭谷 – “No head valley”

Taiwan: 斷頭谷 – “Chop head valley”

Snow Falling on Cedars

Taiwan: 愛在冰雪紛飛時 – “Love happens when the snow is falling down”

The Straight Story

Taiwan:史崔特先生的故事 – “Mr. Straight’s story”

Star War Episode I: The Phantom Menace

Hong Kong: 星戰前傳之魅影危機 – “Star War Pre-Story: The Phantom Crisis”

Taiwan:星球大戰首部曲 – “Star War First Chapter”

Stuart Little

Taiwan: 一家之鼠小史都華 – “Mouse of the family. Stuart”

South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut

Hong Kong: 衰仔樂園 – “Bad boy playground”

Die hard

Hong Kong: 虎膽龍威 – “Tiger’s gall dragon’s pride”

Taiwan: 終極警探- “The ultimate detective”

Just to be fair: my country is not better. I mean nothing can beat Tawainese title for Austin Powers but we’re quite close with our ‘Dirty Dancing – Spinning sex’, ‘Crash – City of anger’, ‘All around the town – Dream about knife’ and my two gold medals go to ‘Terminator – Electronic killer’ and ‘Die hard – Glass trap’.

There are many more examples and sooner or later I will post more. Would you translate it in the other way? Which one is your favourite of all the time? What are the funny titles of foreign movies in your country? Share your experience! 🙂

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