Why Mainland always dubbed their series?

[shangster]

I'm not Chinese, so i don't know the reason for this. One thing that I always find a little annoying when watching mainland production today (with English subtitle) is that it is always dubbed. I understand that sometimes they have actors/actresses who aren't fluent in Mandarin, but they always dubbed the entire cast members. Isn't projecting one's voice a part of the actor's skill? Could someone explain why mainland production choose to dub most of their series?

[szfong]

I'm not Chinese, so i don't know the reason for this. One thing that I always find a little annoying when watching mainland production today (with English subtitle) is that it is always dubbed. I understand that sometimes they have actors/actresses who aren't fluent in Mandarin, but they always dubbed the entire cast members. Isn't projecting one's voice a part of the actor's skill? Could someone explain why mainland production choose to dub most of their series?

China is a large country w/ many dialects and even people in the same city will have very different tonal/dialect variations of speech. If you speak w/ someone in China, a stranger, it can take a few minutes for your brain to re-tune, before you can understand them. In noisy markets people sometimes carry a notepad or a large display calculator to negotiate. Even in Western productions, actors will re-dub their own voices and spend alot of $$$ to re-lip sync / clarify the speech or digitally remove accents. It is a very complex / expensive process. It is because of background noise and clarity reasons. Cheaper productions will cut corners & quality.

They also must hire actors/actresses that have all the different dialect/tonal variations & it becomes VERY hard/painful to understand the film/series. They do it by "normalizing/standardizing" their speech.

Voices are dubbed in sound enclosed rooms using voice actors/actresses w/ very clear, precise, & standard Mandarin. So, as to provide the largest audience. Also, subtitles are almost always included so that certain Chinese regions will understand the true meaning behind the speech.

Also, that is why you will notice different actors in different productions having the exact same voices.

[Dragon Heiress]

And also, it saves productions from having to use really good sound equipment on site. Another thing is that set movement, camera movement, machine-created effects, etc. that are often used in Chinese productions can be loud and you don't really want to be hearing noises in the background of nice scenes.

[j2j2j2]

I also really dislike this as well. I notice it's done a lot more on ancient dramas though than modern ones.

Aside from getting the "right" voice & pronunciation, a big one is money. The ancient dramas are often filmed outside or in large, epic scenes, so voice recording is hard and a lot of dialogue has to be done afterwards. However, they might not have the budget to have the actors redo their lines so it's cheaper to just hire the voice actors.

So this is less of an issue in modern dramas since the scenes are as large.

Still, I really dislike it as well. Sometimes they can cover up a bad actor simply because the voice actor is so good. But that's really disappointing. I hope as Chinese media improves, they can get rid of this (or at least have the original actors re-dub their lines in a studio and record it as many times as needed to get it right).

[itnw123]

Sometimes they can cover up a bad actor simply because the voice actor is so good. But that's really disappointing.

This is the my MAIN issue with the dubbing.

[shangster]

Still, I really dislike it as well. Sometimes they can cover up a bad actor simply because the voice actor is so good. But that's really disappointing. I hope as Chinese media improves, they can get rid of this (or at least have the original actors re-dub their lines in a studio and record it as many times as needed to get it right).

I remember watching TVB's DGSD '84, HSDS '86, RoCH '95, and DGSD '96 on youtube with Subtitle (it has been taken down since), and it feels so different than watching those series dubbed in another language. There is an authentic feel to it that made it so much better than watching it in dubbed. Obviously, I'm not trying to compare TVB's wuxia to today's Mainland. But once Mainland production dubbed all of their actors, it no longer has that authentic or originality feel to it. And you made a good point: what is the point of acting if the production will dub all of the actors' voices?

[Ransi]

Perhaps since I listen to a lot of historical radio dramas or audio dramas in Chinese and so have come to appreciate the eloquence of historical speech as portrayed by voice actors, I actually prefer dubbed productions. While it's less apparent with contemporary settings, with historical settings, hearing a contemporary sounding voice or out-of-character accented voice completely kills the historical atmosphere. Even most Mandarin speakers sound strange in a historical context since they usually speak with some sort of contemporary accent or speech pattern that would make the characters seem like anachronisms that had time traveled. There's a sort of oddity when characters don't uniformly carry the air of historical speech. Or in the worst case scenario, the actors don't speak standard Mandarin (ex: Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, in which the two main characters didn't speak fluent Mandarin leading to monotonous speaking patterns for much of the film).

I find it much more preferable to hear a professional voice actor portray the character to its vocal epitome rather than forcing an actor to attempt to stifle his contemporary accent and project half the effect for authenticity. I mean what exactly is vocal authenticity when it comes to the actual characters? Shouldn't that be the voice that most authentically represents the character rather than the voice that most authentically represents the actor? I for one would prefer to hear a voice that truly brings the character to life.

[Dragon Heiress]

I remember watching TVB's DGSD '84, HSDS '86, RoCH '95, and DGSD '96 on youtube with Subtitle (it has been taken down since), and it feels so different than watching those series dubbed in another language. There is an authentic feel to it that made it so much better than watching it in dubbed. Obviously, I'm not trying to compare TVB's wuxia to today's Mainland. But once Mainland production dubbed all of their actors, it no longer has that authentic or originality feel to it. And you made a good point: what is the point of acting if the production will dub all of the actors' voices?

Were those TVB series not originally dubbed in Cantonese anyway? (I don't know much about TVB)

[shangster]

Were those TVB series not originally dubbed in Cantonese anyway? (I don't know much about TVB)

I don't think TVB dub their series, especially not during the 80's or 90's. And you can definitely tell whether they are dubbed or not.

[shangster]

Perhaps since I listen to a lot of historical radio dramas or audio dramas in Chinese and so have come to appreciate the eloquence of historical speech as portrayed by voice actors, I actually prefer dubbed productions. While it's less apparent with contemporary settings, with historical settings, hearing a contemporary sounding voice or out-of-character accented voice completely kills the historical atmosphere. Even most Mandarin speakers sound strange in a historical context since they usually speak with some sort of contemporary accent or speech pattern that would make the characters seem like anachronisms that had time traveled. There's a sort of oddity when characters don't uniformly carry the air of historical speech. Or in the worst case scenario, the actors don't speak standard Mandarin (ex: Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, in which the two main characters didn't speak fluent Mandarin leading to monotonous speaking patterns for much of the film).

I find it much more preferable to hear a professional voice actor portray the character to its vocal epitome rather than forcing an actor to attempt to stifle his contemporary accent and project half the effect for authenticity. I mean what exactly is vocal authenticity when it comes to the actual characters? Shouldn't that be the voice that most authentically represents the character rather than the voice that most authentically represents the actor? I for one would prefer to hear a voice that truly brings the character to life.

You make a very good point. Keep in mind that I am not Chinese so I don't know anything about the complexity of Mandarin. But why does director even cast actors who aren't even fluent in Mandarin to be in their production? Is Cantonese and Mandarin that much different? Can the Cantonese speakers (actors) recite their lines phonetically in Mandarin?

[Ransi]

You make a very good point. Keep in mind that I am not Chinese so I don't know anything about the complexity of Mandarin. But why does director even cast actors who aren't even fluent in Mandarin to be in their production? Is Cantonese and Mandarin that much different? Can the Cantonese speakers (actors) recite their lines phonetically in Mandarin?

Mandarin and Cantonese are so different that they may as well be different languages since people speaking the two cannot communicate with each other. When Cantonese speakers are forced to recite lines phonetically in Mandarin, you get the effect of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon's two leads. The dialogue sounds like it's being recited phonetically. Voice acting is an art as well, and it's very difficult to properly express emotion and provide the ideal intonations or speaking patterns of characters when you lack fluency with a particular language. While Taiwanese is comprehensible to Mandarin speakers, it's also quite heavily accented and easily identifiable as different from a standard dialect (and a bit strange sounding in a historical Chinese context given its contemporary feel).

But even on a smaller scale, Mandarin speakers from different regions all sound a bit different as well (sometimes to the point of comprehension difficulty) and even slight accents or oddities in speech pattern may create an unintentional comedic effect when placed in a historical setting where that accent wouldn't necessarily exist. I suppose a good comparison would be like imagining an actor with a heavy Texas/Southern drawl being cast into something like Lord of The Rings. To me personally, watching the Taiwanese adaptation of the Chinese classic, Butterfly Lovers, is perhaps like how a British person may feel watching an American accented cast doing Pride & Prejudice. Due to the tonal complexities of Chinese, these accented variations are infinitely greater than the slight variations in the English language and much more prevalent (to the extent of each region/province/city having its own accent of varying degrees).

The actor may be fantastic at acting and may visually be a perfect match for a particular character, but his/her accent would absolutely kill the portrayal. Why sacrifice the ideal theatrical representation of a character created with the best visual representation matched with the best vocal fit? It seems like a waste to make do instead with an actor that may be a mediocre fit visually but can speak fantastically standard historical Mandarin Chinese. Since I'm quite a fan of a number of currently popular Hong Kong and Taiwanese actors, I know I'd definitely be devastated if they were no longer part of Mainland Chinese productions.

[H.Ge-C.Liu]

Perhaps since I listen to a lot of historical radio dramas or audio dramas in Chinese and so have come to appreciate the eloquence of historical speech as portrayed by voice actors, I actually prefer dubbed productions. While it's less apparent with contemporary settings, with historical settings, hearing a contemporary sounding voice or out-of-character accented voice completely kills the historical atmosphere. Even most Mandarin speakers sound strange in a historical context since they usually speak with some sort of contemporary accent or speech pattern that would make the characters seem like anachronisms that had time traveled. There's a sort of oddity when characters don't uniformly carry the air of historical speech. Or in the worst case scenario, the actors don't speak standard Mandarin (ex: Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, in which the two main characters didn't speak fluent Mandarin leading to monotonous speaking patterns for much of the film).

I find it much more preferable to hear a professional voice actor portray the character to its vocal epitome rather than forcing an actor to attempt to stifle his contemporary accent and project half the effect for authenticity. I mean what exactly is vocal authenticity when it comes to the actual characters? Shouldn't that be the voice that most authentically represents the character rather than the voice that most authentically represents the actor? I for one would prefer to hear a voice that truly brings the character to life.

A very good point indeed. I cannot imagine watching a historical drama such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms featuring actors speaking with a HK or TW accent.

[j2j2j2]

I find it much more preferable to hear a professional voice actor portray the character to its vocal epitome rather than forcing an actor to attempt to stifle his contemporary accent and project half the effect for authenticity. I mean what exactly is vocal authenticity when it comes to the actual characters? Shouldn't that be the voice that most authentically represents the character rather than the voice that most authentically represents the actor? I for one would prefer to hear a voice that truly brings the character to life.

I understand where you're coming from but they're called "actors" for a reason

If those actors can't act, then they need to work harder and hone their craft or they need to find other actors. Accent and language training should be emphasized and I have no doubt that if it was required the better actors could do it.

That's how the Chinese entertainment industry will improve as a whole.

Also, when a voice is dubbed, unless it's perfectly synced it feels awkward. It also limits certain shots and scenes because if the dubbing doesn't move with the lips, then it looks off.

In addition, if an actor is dubbed by different people in different series, then it's even worse because it shakes you out of the story.

I doubt anyone could support a "singer" that has their voices dubbed so why should we allow our actors to be as well?

A very good point indeed. I cannot imagine watching a historical drama such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms featuring actors speaking with a HK or TW accent.

Haha, I know what you mean, but if the actor is good enough, then they can learn how to speak Mandarin with a standard accent. And if they can't, then they need to cast a better actor.

[shangster]

Mandarin and Cantonese are so different that they may as well be different languages since people speaking the two cannot communicate with each other. When Cantonese speakers are forced to recite lines phonetically in Mandarin, you get the effect of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon's two leads. The dialogue sounds like it's being recited phonetically. Voice acting is an art as well, and it's very difficult to properly express emotion and provide the ideal intonations or speaking patterns of characters when you lack fluency with a particular language. While Taiwanese is comprehensible to Mandarin speakers, it's also quite heavily accented and easily identifiable as different from a standard dialect (and a bit strange sounding in a historical Chinese context given its contemporary feel).

But even on a smaller scale, Mandarin speakers from different regions all sound a bit different as well (sometimes to the point of comprehension difficulty) and even slight accents or oddities in speech pattern may create an unintentional comedic effect when placed in a historical setting where that accent wouldn't necessarily exist. I suppose a good comparison would be like imagining an actor with a heavy Texas/Southern drawl being cast into something like Lord of The Rings. To me personally, watching the Taiwanese adaptation of the Chinese classic, Butterfly Lovers, is perhaps like how a British person may feel watching an American accented cast doing Pride & Prejudice. Due to the tonal complexities of Chinese, these accented variations are infinitely greater than the slight variations in the English language and much more prevalent (to the extent of each region/province/city having its own accent of varying degrees).

The actor may be fantastic at acting and may visually be a perfect match for a particular character, but his/her accent would absolutely kill the portrayal. Why sacrifice the ideal theatrical representation of a character created with the best visual representation matched with the best vocal fit? It seems like a waste to make do instead with an actor that may be a mediocre fit visually but can speak fantastically standard historical Mandarin Chinese. Since I'm quite a fan of a number of currently popular Hong Kong and Taiwanese actors, I know I'd definitely be devastated if they were no longer part of Mainland Chinese productions.

Thanks for a very clear and elaborated reply. I now completely understand your point. Since I'm not Chinese, I didn't realize how complex Mandarin is, even for native Mandarin speakers who are from different region of China. Since you put it this way, I definitely believe that dubbing would be the best method for mainland production.

Even though I'm not Chinese, I am a fan of TVB 80's and 90's wuxia series, in which it was in Cantonese. I first watched those series dubbed in my language (Vietnamese), some series were dubbed using good voice actors and others sounded like trash. Many years later, I got to watch those same series but in its original Cantonese language with English subtitle. I must say that it was quite unique as I get to watch some favorite HK actors such as Tony Leung, Felix Wong and have always wonder what their real voices were like, and how they project their lines in their characters. First the first time, I get to hear Tony Leung's voice reciting his lines in HSDS '86. It made me appreciate his acting even more. This is what I meant in my OP about the "actor's authenticity".

I do have a question:
What is your opinion of TVB's 80's and 90's wuxia series or non wuxia series such as the Grand Canal? Do you feel that it is not quite authentic to the time period since all those production were done in Cantonese?

[Ransi]

I understand where you're coming from but they're called "actors" for a reason

If those actors can't act, then they need to work harder and hone their craft or they need to find other actors. Accent and language training should be emphasized and I have no doubt that if it was required the better actors could do it.

That's how the Chinese entertainment industry will improve as a whole.

I can't say if any research has been done on dialect variations to the severe extent of Chinese dialects, however, in a linguistics lecture I attended, I believe it was hypothesized that the age of 12 is the cut-off at which learners are able to learn a language fully to the capacity of native speakers with no accent (second-language acquisition). Given the difficulty in comprehension between varying Chinese dialects, I think it can be considered on a similar linguistics scale. So requesting that all actors fluently speak in standard Mandarin, of which they may have had no comprehension of prior, is potentially very difficult depending upon the dialect's degree of difference from standard Mandarin as well as the age at which they began learning standard Mandarin speech. It's a bit unfair I think to judge acting capability based upon an individual's language acquisition capability.

Even though I'm not Chinese, I am a fan of TVB 80's and 90's wuxia series, in which it was in Cantonese. I first watched those series dubbed in my language (Vietnamese), some series were dubbed using good voice actors and others sounded like trash. Many years later, I got to watch those same series but in its original Cantonese language with English subtitle. I must say that it was quite unique as I get to watch some favorite HK actors such as Tony Leung, Felix Wong and have always wonder what their real voices were like, and how they project their lines in their characters. First the first time, I get to hear Tony Leung's voice reciting his lines in HSDS '86. It made me appreciate his acting even more. This is what I meant in my OP about the "actor's authenticity".

I do have a question:
What is your opinion of TVB's 80's and 90's wuxia series or non wuxia series such as the Grand Canal? Do you feel that it is not quite authentic to the time period since all those production were done in Cantonese?

I can definitely understand your frustration as the majority of pre-millenium Chinese wuxia films were dubbed into English before entering the US market. I would always be baffled by the absurd "Chinese-accented" English voices present, which fit American stereotypes of the characters' images more so than the actual characters themselves. Particularly strange was the fact that the older the character, the more broken the English, as if the English voice actors were emulating Chinese-American speech across a stereotyped age spectrum.

In regards to your question, I think it honestly depends on how authentically historical the characters are. While I personally don't recall having watched any TVB wuxia series and any TVB series I may have watched were most likely dubbed into Mandarin, I think that there's not a huge sense of historical displacement with watching it in Cantonese either since those wuxia novels were predominantly written in the past century and already have elements of modernity in regards to the characters (correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the sense that a significant portion of wuxia characters already speak/act to a certain extent like anachronisms placed into a historical context in order to appeal to a contemporary audience).

I would definitely find it preferable to hear the characters speaking in Cantonese (assuming the whole cast spoke Cantonese) than to hear a Cantonese speaking actor's emulated Mandarin for historical authenticity (Crouching Tiger). Instances where only a few characters speak with a Cantonese accent in the midst of a Mandarin cast is when it would seem strange since that accent isn't a characteristic of the characters but would now be put into emphasis given the context. I agree with H.Ge-C.Liu in the sense that it may seem more personally shocking seeing a historical novel written centuries before, such as Romance of The Three Kingdoms or The Water Margin, with characters speaking in a Cantonese or Taiwanese dialect.

[shangster]

Ransi, I appreciate your response. In your opinion, do you think it's better for a Mainland series to be dubbed even if the entire casts' native dialect is Mandarin? (has a situation like this ever been done before for a wuxia or even a modern series?)

Back to the topic. I still believe and strongly prefer that production should not use dubbing if the entire casts can speak in the preferred dialect fluently. The problem with dubbing is that i think it sometimes loses the emotion of the situation for the character. For example, I watched an episode of SoD '96 on youtube that was dubbed in Mandarin. The part that I watched was when Yue Ling Shan was killed by Lin Ping Zhi, in which Linghu Chong held her in his arms as she was dieing. The dubbing in Mandarin was fine, but for some reason I just could not express the same emotion as when I watch that episode in its Cantonese dialect. I think the dubbing took away the emotion of the scene's situation, because it did not convey the same emotion as the actors' real voices.

[Ransi]

Ransi, I appreciate your response. In your opinion, do you think it's better for a Mainland series to be dubbed even if the entire casts' native dialect is Mandarin? (has a situation like this ever been done before for a wuxia or even a modern series?)

Even with Mandarin, there's just such a multitude of accents. Mandarin is sort of an umbrella term for a lot of provincial dialects. As szfong mentioned previously, people from the same city may speak Mandarin with vastly different accents. As such, it may be be incredibly difficult to find an entire cast of actors whose voices could fully represent the characters without superfluous accents. But idealistically, I would agree with you that if all Chinese actors could portray authentic historical speech well without contemporary accents, that it would be best to do without a dub-over.

[j2j2j2]

I can't say if any research has been done on dialect variations to the severe extent of Chinese dialects, however, in a linguistics lecture I attended, I believe it was hypothesized that the age of 12 is the cut-off at which learners are able to learn a language fully to the capacity of native speakers with no accent (second-language acquisition). Given the difficulty in comprehension between varying Chinese dialects, I think it can be considered on a similar linguistics scale. So requesting that all actors fluently speak in standard Mandarin, of which they may have had no comprehension of prior, is potentially very difficult depending upon the dialect's degree of difference from standard Mandarin as well as the age at which they began learning standard Mandarin speech. It's a bit unfair I think to judge acting capability based upon an individual's language acquisition capability.

That's an interesting point, but isn't that more about a person's "natural" speaking ability and not acting ability?

For example, in Hollywood there are a lot of Australian and British actors that are able to speak with an American accent.

And if you watch Taiwanese variety shows, I've seen plenty of times where celebrities will fake a Beijing Mandarin accent for fun when talking about their experiences filming in China.

Take a look at this article:

http://www.langology.org/?p=723

It talks about how actors hire "Dialect Coaches" to train their accents:

Know anyone who can slip into a Cockney accent,
slide through a southern drawl, pop in a Queen’s accent,
and even manage a French accent as well and all convincingly?

Or have you ever wondered how Leonardo DiCaprio had a Rhodesian accent
in Blood Diamonds, or how on earth Johnny Depp and Anne Hathaway
all have a proper English accent in Alice in Wonderland?

Or maybe you were surprised at how Javier Bardem toned down
his strong Spanish accent in No Country for Old Men? Did you
just assume that they learned alone?

Guess again. More than likely they did it with the
help of a dialect coach, the new must have accessory for every Hollywood star.

Notice how much effort and care is put into getting an authentic experience. When an actor goes through this training and are able to express themselves their expression and emotions are really seen through the film.

So it's definitely possible for an actor to train their accent if they take the time. Now I understand that many Chinese productions don't have the budget for this and they don't have the time to re-film scenes over and over again if they actors natural accent slips out.

But still, this should be the goal. Not just of the production but also of the actors. If they actors held themselves to a higher standard, along with the production, then Chinese entertainment would improve as a whole.

I truly believe that excellence is in the details. And that a production that is lax about these things will never truly be great.

This is a very interesting discussion and I'm glad to hear your opinions on it You're actually the first person I've ever heard that's ok with the dubbing, so it's very neat to hear the other side's thoughts!

[Ransi]

I agree that with training it may be possible to emulate standard Mandarin (particularly with lightly accented Mandarin speakers, such as those Taiwanese stars)! It may be a bit more difficult when there's no linguistic comprehension (since many Chinese dialects are as incomprehensible to each other as if they were foreign languages). I don't think Hollywood is able to coach completely non-English speaking actors into speaking non-accented American English, right? That's mainly why I brought up the 2nd language acquisition issue. Unlike the case with English dialects, people with different Chinese dialects oftentimes cannot understand each other at all. This creates a flattening effect when reciting a line that the actor has no true comprehension of.

I think since to my knowledge, the only attempt at training non-Mandarin speakers to emulate standard Mandarin in a Hollywood movie was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and that was just so awful sounding, that I may be more deterred by the idea than most. To my ears as a native speaker, it just sounded like disastrously monotonous memorized speech with almost a complete lack of the vocal intonations and proper word stressing that would be present in a native speaker's speech patterns. Imagine an English Hollywood film where the actors sounded like they were reciting lines without comprehension of what they were saying, and that would essentially be how I felt in that theater. Perhaps if more attempts were made and they were to be able to truly streamline this into a sort of language school as part of an actor's vocal training, I'd be hopeful that it could work better in future works.

This is a very interesting discussion and I'm glad to hear your opinions on it You're actually the first person I've ever heard that's ok with the dubbing, so it's very neat to hear the other side's thoughts!

Thanks, I'm glad to read all your opinions as well since I've never considered this issue previously! This discussion was more interesting and enlightening than forum norms! Although I'm probably such a rare oddity amongst English-speakers since:

1. I absolutely hated the way the two main actors's emulated standard Mandarin sounded in Crouching Tiger despite being an Ang Lee fan.

2. There's a number of voice actors that I admire for their work in drama CDs / audio dramas and so I've come to appreciate their vocal work. I don't think there's a habit of admiring voice actors outside of perhaps China and Japan (though there are seemingly quite a few foreign fans of Japanese anime voice actors).

[thedov]

why could they all just be subtitled and leave it at that