For or against dubbing?

[yearning]

Should artists be dubbed for movies and dramas? I guess from a production's point of view, they should to fit the role better *cough LYF's little girl voice* cough* Zhou Xun's deep voice *cough*, but then it raises the question of what constitutes as an actress/actor. After all, isn't voice acting also part of it? They're not performing mimes here, and I think to be a successful actor/actress in my books, they should be able to convey the emotions BOTH visually AND in an auditory sense.

What do you guys think?

[bellamia]

Should artists be dubbed for movies and dramas? I guess from a production's point of view, they should to fit the role better *cough LYF's little girl voice* cough* Zhou Xun's deep voice *cough*, but then it raises the question of what constitutes as an actress/actor. After all, isn't voice acting also part of it? They're not performing mimes here, and I think to be a successful actor/actress in my books, they should be able to convey the emotions BOTH visually AND in an auditory sense.

What do you guys think?

I favor dubbing just because not everyone here can speak or understand Chinese. Dubbing is required when the series or movie gets translated into another language. As a long-time fan of Chinese serials, I do not see any negative effects from voice dubbing. For me, facial expressions and body language are the importance components that determine quality acting skills.

[Suet Seung]

I'm against dubbing. Even with the Vietnamese dubbing of series nowadays with TVB series' is terrible. The voice actress' voice is annoying and I can't stand it. I prefer subtitles.

[0-0-0]

I think there's some scientific fact about the tone of voice constituting up to 40 or 50% of the emotion or feeling expressed by a person, so the fact that actresses have professional dubbers, to me, indicates that they're only doing about 50-60% of the role and the dubbers are doing the other half.

On the other hand, i can see the benefits when it comes to historical dramas. The accents would really diminish the atmosphere in those. No dubbing could also make it very hard for Taiwanese actors/actresses to break through to mainland. I don't tend to watch Taiwanese dramas simply because i can't stand the accents sometimes.

Another good case for the dubbing would be for anyone who watched Memoirs of a Geisha. The actresses/actors used their own voices, i believe, and I have to say, their english is NOT good. I mean, the film was pretty bad overall, but had they dubbed professionally, it would have been just a bit better than the japanese english accents and chinese english accents flying about everywhere, and Zhang Zi Yi's "I'm not worthless" or whatever she said.

I think there should be a shift towards dubbing your own voice, but the problem is that the chinese actresses/actors don't have the ability for it.

When i went hunting for voices in the voice poll i created for the actresses, i was actually rather horrified by what i heard. The two things that worried me most were the scattered accents and the lack of expression. Ruby's voice, Ady's voice are very sharp and chirpy, I don't think i would enjoy listening to those voices- they are representative of really, one type of character they could play, and i'm not sure they could pull off the serious, emotional scenes with voices like that.

The scattering of accents would also make it hard to put together a serious collaboration. Series with scatterings of Taiwanese, Northern accents, Southern accents would just be inconsistent. It's like those movies you see once in a while set in a European country and one actor is putting on a French accent, the other a Russian, the other sounding more German

[GuGu]

I hate Dubbing! All works should be subbed, not dubbed.

[0-0-0]

I'm against dubbing. Even with the Vietnamese dubbing of series nowadays with TVB series' is terrible. The voice actress' voice is annoying and I can't stand it. I prefer subtitles.

Chinese dubbing of Korean series is especially bad as well. It seems that they have the same few people dubbing EVERY series, and they have such terrible voices. The female dubbers have the high, very fake sounding, whiny voice and the male dubbers have that really exaggerated voice trying to sound comical and then mournful.

[big master]

I hate Dubbing! All works should be subbed, not dubbed.

i second demotion!

[bellamia]

I hate Dubbing! All works should be subbed, not dubbed.

4 God have mercy, think of the elders. granny here will not be able to read the words fast enough to keep up with the storylines. younger generation nowadays, is so inconsiderate of the elderly. granny and poppy need to watch movies to keep us from wasting away.......

[yearning]

I actually don't mind dubbing of different languages--not everyone can read subtitles and it's a pain to read subtitles sometimes, so it's not such a bad thing. Although for the Mandarin dubbing of Korean and Canto shows seems to be those SAME people, although I have to admit that they have really nice voices.

And I totally agree with 0-0-0 about the effort actors/actresses are putting in. Like I said, it's not a mime, so they really aren't doing all the work if they're just doing expressions.

Yeah the Taiwanese accents really bug me too and I think it's the fault of the actors/actresses. It's not really THAT hard to change your accent, and lots of people do it for shows. I'm VERY surprised that Ruby and Ady haven't found a way to pronounce properly yet. For idol dramas, okay go ahead, but for historical dramas? They really should get rid of any accents.

It's this whole deal with collaborations now that makes it almost compulsory to dub. I agree that actors/actresses should be cast regardless of where they come from, but sometimes it's just a pain when they speak different dialects and then you get this huge non-disjunct piece of work.

And I found it completely unnecsesary to cast Koreans in Chinese shows, especially when they're acting as Chinese people. It's so obvious that they're not, and the dubbing seems really unnatural when it doesn't even fit their mouth shapes. An example is Love of the Aegean Sea--no point in getting Chae Rim there--any Taiwanese actress could've done the lame acting job she had, acting as a CHINESE girl.

[Sparky]

As far as the accents go, I know it's hard to change the way you've spoken all your life, but if American actors/actresses can pull off British accents, the Taiwanese actors/actresses can learn to get rid of their accents.

About the poll, I agree Ruby and Ady have very sharp voices, but as long as an actress can express their voice properly, the natural color isn't too important. Whereas, if you have an actress with a beautiful sounding voice, but is monotone, then that's not very good either.

I'm genreally against dubbing except when the accent issue comes up.

[hmschocolate]

It's this whole deal with collaborations now that makes it almost compulsory to dub. I agree that actors/actresses should be cast regardless of where they come from, but sometimes it's just a pain when they speak different dialects and then you get this huge non-disjunct piece of work.

And I found it completely unnecsesary to cast Koreans in Chinese shows, especially when they're acting as Chinese people. It's so obvious that they're not, and the dubbing seems really unnatural when it doesn't even fit their mouth shapes. An example is Love of the Aegean Sea--no point in getting Chae Rim there--any Taiwanese actress could've done the lame acting job she had, acting as a CHINESE girl.

I find it really really distracting to watch dramas such as Aegan Sea or Bratty Princess. Seriously, I watch it dubbed in Vietnamese anyway, but I have just spent the last 7 years being exposed to a large number of Koreans thus I know a lot of Korean words and the way their mouths move when they speak, and it certainly is nothing like Chinese. So, it's weird, because I can lip-read Korean from the actress and Chinese from the actor and it's annoying. I'm used to Viet-dubbed dramas/movie, so being able to lip-read Chinese doesn't bother me. But being able to lipread Korean in a Chinese drama (esp a periodic drama like Bratty Princess) is distracting. I kept having to remind myself that Bratty Princess was set in China, not Korea.

[Ken Cheng]

I prefer dubbing myself (because I want to watch, not READ a show/movie), but the caveat is that it must be done well.

[kidd]

I'm for dubbing. Dubbing allows for colaboration work between different countries like Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and Singapore. Dubbing also allows the series/movie to have wider distribution. For a movie, I would prefer to listen to the original language, since a movie is only 2 hours, I can handle it. But for long series, would prefer cantonese. Beats having to pause the VCD every 5 minutes just to read the subtitle (english sub is ok, but chinese sub, I can only read it slowly).

If the dubbing was done well, it really wouldn't affect the series much. The dubbing of Ruby Lin's voice in Huan Zhu Ge Ge is a very good decision. The voice actress was good. So, there's enough emotion there and the voice was way more suitable for the character of Zhi Wei than Ruby's own voice. Wallace Chung's voice was often dubbed in series eventhough he spoke the dialogue in mandarin. He still sounds good. Jet Li's voice in all his contonese movies was dubbed, but I never realised that until I first heard him use his own voice in Lethal Weapon 4. Proof how convincing a good dubbing is.

[PeterBanh]

I don't understand chinese, so I watch the vietnamese dub. Some of them are really good but some of them is bad. Even the bad one, I think still better than leave it as chinese language and just read the subtitle. For the chinese language, I think it shouldn't redub, I think it is better to leave the original voice regardless how the voice sound. That way, it is fair to judge the actor/actress performance. If they change the voice, then it is sometime very unfair to the artist since if they let some bad dude can ruin the artist image.

For viet language I only can judge the artist performance not his voice since it is not his real voice and it wasn't his/her fault if it sound badly......

[hmschocolate]

Most Viet dubbing is horrible, or mediocre at least. Some voices just sound very annoying. I have yet to hear a good Viet-dubbing of a series.

For the original Chinese series, I don't think they should be dubbed. If they do collaboratio with Koreans obviously it will need to be dubbed but for actors who actually speak Chinese already, I don't think they should be dubbed over.

[yearning]

I'm for dubbing. Dubbing allows for colaboration work between different countries like Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and Singapore. Dubbing also allows the series/movie to have wider distribution. For a movie, I would prefer to listen to the original language, since a movie is only 2 hours, I can handle it. But for long series, would prefer cantonese. Beats having to pause the VCD every 5 minutes just to read the subtitle (english sub is ok, but chinese sub, I can only read it slowly).

If the dubbing was done well, it really wouldn't affect the series much. The dubbing of Ruby Lin's voice in Huan Zhu Ge Ge is a very good decision. The voice actress was good. So, there's enough emotion there and the voice was way more suitable for the character of Zhi Wei than Ruby's own voice. Wallace Chung's voice was often dubbed in series eventhough he spoke the dialogue in mandarin. He still sounds good. Jet Li's voice in all his contonese movies was dubbed, but I never realised that until I first heard him use his own voice in Lethal Weapon 4. Proof how convincing a good dubbing is.

Ruby was dubbed? It sounded like her own voice. Or are you talking about the Canto version?

Yeah they should leave the original voice in the sense that the actors/actresses get or loss credit for their performance depending on how well the dubbing artist does.

[Sparky]

Ruby was dubbed? It sounded like her own voice. Or are you talking about the Canto version?

Ruby was dubbed. Qiong Yao herself has said so, and I believe someone asked her why she dubbed Ruby if she could speak Mandarin. I forget what Qiong Yao's response was.

The Canto version was...not as good as the original.

Btw, how would you all rate the dubbing of TVB series overall? (Particularly old wuxia series)

[darkangel1992]

I'm for Dubbing and I don't think that the dubbing for Viet-series are bad at all!!!

[mediamovers]

Its important for actors to convey emotions through every possible medium including voice.

As most of the time when viewers become aware of the voice behind the actor they do feel slightly cheater....ofcourse for animation it always different

But foreign language dubbing between countries/regions is definetly required to ensure a culture transfer.

Dubbing/Subtitling are integral part of cultural transfer between all countries.
Though the debate is always between preference of dubbing or subtitling each of it requires high level of artistic/technical input to ensure the final output is more local in every sense.

Dubbing brings more life to characters of a film than subtitles though a bad dubbed film can be a nightmare to watch.
Most Scandivian countries prefer subtitling over dubbing but now it is most preferred also for Deaf community.Same language subtitling (SLS) is one of essential way to educate people.



Lawrence Vishnu
CEO
Media Movers, Inc.

[PeterBanh]

Its important for actors to convey emotions through every possible medium including voice.

As most of the time when viewers become aware of the voice behind the actor they do feel slightly cheater....ofcourse for animation it always different

But foreign language dubbing between countries/regions is definetly required to ensure a culture transfer.

Dubbing/Subtitling are integral part of cultural transfer between all countries.
Though the debate is always between preference of dubbing or subtitling each of it requires high level of artistic/technical input to ensure the final output is more local in every sense.

Dubbing brings more life to characters of a film than subtitles though a bad dubbed film can be a nightmare to watch.
Most Scandivian countries prefer subtitling over dubbing but now it is most preferred also for Deaf community.Same language subtitling (SLS) is one of essential way to educate people.



Lawrence Vishnu
CEO
Media Movers, Inc.

I watch series in vietnamese language. Some of the dub are really good and some are bad. Even bad dub still way better than just subtitle. It is really difficult just keep trying to read the subtitle rather than watch what the actor doing...... But then, people who watch series other than its original language shouldn't complain about the actor voice since it is not their fault for bad voice or their dialogue doesn't express the situation well.......