Foreign films - Subtitled or Dubbed?

[William]

I prefer subs usually, but sometimes I wish you could change the colour of them. I watched La Haine the other week and the subtitles were in white.

 

[xtreme.BIN]

100% Subs, dubbing ruins the atmosphere and feel of the film imho.

Although I will admit I used the 5.1 English stream on AppleSeed but thats anim which is different.

 

[panthro]

Subtitles always. For all of the above reasons. Most of the older wuxia films are dubbed anyway I refuse to watch them with dubbed english voices.

 

[HangTime]

I think British (well, most of the world actually) people tend to be a bit snobbish on this issue, and view dubbing as some kind of heinous crime which ruins the atmosphere of a film.

However, it does depend on the quality of dubbing and the voice actors used. In Germany, subtitles are somewhat frowned upon and the vast majority of foreign (i.e. Hollywood) films are dubbed. They actually have people specifically cast to voice specific actors whose voices fits well - e.g. Arnie has his own 'voice guy'. Overall the quality is much better than what we are used to, it's not like those dodgy german porn flicks.

An example of a dubbed film I saw a few years ago which I thought was fine would be La vita e bella (Life is Beautiful). I had the typical Brit snob attitude and was poised to jump on anything which didn't feel right, but pretty soon I was so wrapped up in the story I forgot all about it.

That said, I don't have a problem with subtitles. The only issue really is that it draws your eyes away from the centre of the screen and sometimes prevents you from picking up on facial expressions and suchlike.

 

[Energize]

Subs.

 

[Werewolf]

I think British (well, most of the world actually) people tend to be a bit snobbish on this issue, and view dubbing as some kind of heinous crime which ruins the atmosphere of a film.

However, it does depend on the quality of dubbing and the voice actors used. In Germany, subtitles are somewhat frowned upon and the vast majority of foreign (i.e. Hollywood) films are dubbed. They actually have people specifically cast to voice specific actors whose voices fits well - e.g. Arnie has his own 'voice guy'. Overall the quality is much better than what we are used to, it's not like those dodgy german porn flicks.

An example of a dubbed film I saw a few years ago which I thought was fine would be La vita e bella (Life is Beautiful). I had the typical Brit snob attitude and was poised to jump on anything which didn't feel right, but pretty soon I was so wrapped up in the story I forgot all about it.

That said, I don't have a problem with subtitles. The only issue really is that it draws your eyes away from the centre of the screen and sometimes prevents you from picking up on facial expressions and suchlike.

That is pretty well said.

I think in some ways we are spoiled in that most of the film we watch have generally been english from the start, in large thanks to Hollywood and the British film industy, unlike France, Japan, Germany etc where a lot of the "big" films are foreign language (it's very unusual for us to get a foreign language film that makes a fairly big hit at the cinema).
We are also incredibly sensative to things like the lipflaps matching visually what we hear, which i've been fairly reliably informed isn't the case with say the Japanese and I guess makes a difference in how easily dubs are accepted (as it feels wrong for us unless the timing is almost perfect).

As I said earlier it hasn't helped the image of dubbed foreign films that traditionally where a foreign language film has been dubbed into english it hasn't been done with much care until recently, and with casting not taking into account the fact that it requires experience with a different performance technique compared to live action/theater (same as theater and tv/film require different performance techniques).

I'm actually sort of interested in watching some of the R1 Godilla DVD's sometime, as apparently one of the big anime studios did the dubbing for them using the same VA's they've used for years to do anime dubs (as opposed to locating a bunch of jobbing actors with little/no experience at dubbing and expecting them to get it right first time in a major dub role).

 

[BloodWolf]

Dubbed..
because I miss half the movies whilst reading subs :\

 

[Alasdair]

Subtitles everytime.

Sometimes it's funny to watch a 1970s Hong Kong kung fu flick with awful dubbing though, it's good for banter but not for appreciation of a decent film.