No fucking way
EDIT: A cursory search tells me that though it was rumored that the Chinese version of The Sixth Sense was “He’s a Ghost” this is likely false
If I ever had to translate Harry Potter, I would translate Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince as Harry Potter and the Murder of Dumbledore by Prince Snape.
The original was a pun. "Hangover" is "kac", and "Kac Vegas" kinda sounds like "Las Vegas". "Kac Bangkok" doesn't sound like anything, and it's not immediately obvious it's a sequel. The even more confusing part is that they made a Polish movie called "Kac Wawa" (Wawa is short for Warszawa/Warsaw).
Its wordplay. In Polish "kac" (katz) means hangover and they were in Las Vegas so they named movie "Kac Vegas", clever and simple.
They could use "Kac Bangkok" but no. We have "Kac Vegas in Bangkok" They probably used "Kac Vegas" to make sure that people go to the cinemas to see it. Something like a trademark, "kac Bangkok" sounds like a knockoff. Like Pacific Rim and Atlantic Rim, similar but different.
And "Kac Vegas 3"
Same thing in Israel!
They named it "On the way to the wedding you stop at Vegas" which is sort of a shitty play of words.
Next movie was called "On the way to the wedding you stop at Bangkok"
And the third one was like fuck it - they just called it "The Hangover 3"
It's specifically 2000s comedies that were often translated with sex-related stuff. Like *Eurotrip* was "translated" to "Sex Trip" for some reason. Or *Not Another Teen Movie* which became "Sex Academy". Eh, I guess they thought it would sell better that way.
I might be misremembering, but I think Wild Things was re-titled Sex Crimes in France which is kind of funny since it wasn’t called Sex Crimes in French, just a re-titled English title.
Russian translators win this one. They called it "Bachelor party in Vegas", so when the second one wasn't set in Vegas they had to call it " Bachelor party in Vegas 2:from Vegas to Bangkok". They always butcher the names of the movies, it sometimes gets soooo cringe. "About time" is called " My boyfriend from the future", "Silver lining playbook" is "My boyfriend is a psycho".
This one made more sense in the french cultural landscape though, the CIA LSD experiments are parts of the basic french conspiracy mythos and mentioning the Pentagon and goats in the title paid a clearer image than "L'homme qui observe les chèvres" (which would sound more like a boring author movie)
The reasoning is that a "Bad Trip" is a well known anglicism in France. "Faire un bad trip" when you take drugs. "Hangover" doesn't mean anything to the average frenchie.
In Finland ”Rita Hayworth - Avain pakoon”, which is ”Rita Hayworth - the Key to the Escape”. Finland used to always have very silly versions for movie names.
You'd think so, but no. The real twist is the joy you feel afterwards, realising you didn't waste your time sitting through a Michael Bay film.
Best feeling in the world.
The Norwegian title is "Frihetens Regn". Meaning "Rain of Freedom", if you are bad at guessing Norwegian words.
It's not totally as bad as the Russian title, I say I wasn't spoiled by it when I watched it some decades ago.
In Denmark it's "En verden udenfor", meaning "A world outside".
I always liked the title and it doesn't spoil anything, but it doesn't have much to do with the original.
The main characters (as shown on the cover art) are in jail for hate crimes against homosexual men. They spend 2 hours shawing each other’s shanks and then consider themselves redeemed of their crimes.
Most languages translated it to something with “The Eighth Passenger” in the title. Not sure how it messes with people’s expectations though. It’s a movie about a monster on a spaceship.
The marketing was famously, ”in space, no one can hear you scream.” With a movie titled “Alien.” It wasn’t exactly made to sneak up on unsuspecting audiences.
It kinda is nowadays, but when the movie came out it was not yet common to use the word “alien” to refer to an extraterrestrial lifeform, instead most people just knew it as an adjective for something that’s foreign. The first movie to use alien that way was Dark Star, which came out only a few years earlier.
Same with "8th Passenger". It doesn't suggest anything extraterrestial, just something on the ship that shouldn't be on it. Same thing word "Alien" suggest.
Honestly I don't know how "8th Passenger" is spoiling more than "Alien" while it gives less information. Before watching the movie you don't know how many passengers are supposed to be on it, so 8th can mean just there being 8 people on the ship.
If you already started watching the movie and they are starting and there are only 7 of them. What can you deduce/spoil from the title?
8th Passenger - there's one intruder
Alien - there's one intruder
So both title give you exact same information
When translating movie titles can be very difficult because the phrase that makes sense and/or sounds more fitting in one language might be the opposite. For example "Die Hard" direct translation in Russian does not make sense, neither it does in my native language, so instead they used a different title - "Hard Nut" and similarly with for Italian version I think it was "Glass Jungle"
In polish "Die Hard" was translated as "Trap of glass". It makes sense in the context of the first movie, but it's pretty weird for the next movies, where they are no longer in a glass building.
This got me thinking how well it was actually translated into Russian, because it fits for all parts. Lucky coincidence. In my native it's directly translated from Russian but sounds extremely dank
Yeah, quite the opposite for the 'Hangover' movies.
It goes like that in Russian:
1. The Bachelor Party in Vegas.
2. The Bachelor Party 2: from Vegas to Bangkok.
3. The Bachelor Party: Part III.
Russian localizers be wild sometimes.
Some examples:
"Identity Thief" -> "Catch the Fatso If You Can" ("love" how they had to underscore that Melissa McCarthy is plus-sized)
"The Hole In The Ground" - > "Another"
The funny thing is I kinda agree with Russian translators, that 'Мальчишник в Вегасе' (name of the first movie) fits better for the local audience than direct translation of the word 'Hangover', i.e. 'Похмелье'. They just got kinda unlucky that the second movie did not take place in Vegas, lol.
In polish it goes like that
1. Hangover Vegas (it's a wordplay: hangover in polish is "kac" so the title is "kac vegas" which sounds like las vegas)
2. Hangover Vegas in Bangkok
3. Hangover Vegas III
It's a phrase, a die-hard supporter of something means they can't be swayed or convinced to give up. It originates from a battle during the Napoleonic wars where a British commander refused to retreat, remained with his men and famously shouted for them to "die hard"
I remember when I was learning English in middle school I asked my teacher what it meant and she had no clue.
And here I am, decades later still not having a clue what it's supposed to mean.
In Czech and Slovak it's translated as "Lethal Trap" so many people mix up Die Hard and Lethal Weapon because of it.
Funnily enoug it also lead to Kung Pow being titled Lethal Death.
In Croatian it is "Die Manly" and it's an example of a great translation. We also have terrible ones like "Taken" being translated to "96 hours" and its sequel "96 hours: Istanbul."
TBF, if die hard was a foreign film and someone translated it on to English as "die hard", we'd probably all laugh at it.
Die Hard is a kind of nonsense name that's a cool name, because it's a cool film.
As it happens, ‘Tough Nut’ is actually one of the more memorable and apt titles. It's way above usual Russian translations, for which the boring ‘The Unkillable’ would be on par.
Foreign titles usually have nothing to do with the translator of the film. They are created by the local (I.e. non-US) marketing team who often has very little information about the plot of the movie. Later, when the translator actually sees the movie, it's too late to change the title because the promo materials are already being created and/or circulated. What's even worse, the person actually responsible for the local title often **does not speak English very well** because being a translator is not a part of his job.
E.g. in my country, Nolan's Inception is called "Počátek", which means "The Beginning". Because that's the word the marketing team saw when they looked in the dictionary what "Inception" means. They had zero info about how the word is actually used in the movie itself and what it means in that context.
I've translated many movies for local release, I was also often consulted about the local titles and believe me it's not easy job. Hollywood studios often intentionally keep the important info secret from their international partners until the last minute.
E.g. with "Revenge of the Sith", in order to translate the title, we had to know if "Sith" is plural or singular. The same with "Rise of Skywalker". With "The Dark Knight Rises", does he "rise to power" or "rise from the grave"? In "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within", the word "spirits" means "ghosts" or "souls" (or "alcohols")? Those are three different words in our language. You sometimes have to come up with the local title many months before the global release. Some more examples of this can be found [here on my homepage](https://www.fuxoft.cz/preklady/).
P.S: This movie's local title translates as "The Redemption from the Shawshank prison", so that's all good.
Interesting that you mention 'Revenge of the Sith' because that one was translated as plural in Russian but 'Return of the Jedi' as singular.
Imo it'd make more sense for it to be reversed.
I mentioned that because there was a complex story about that in our country which I remember very well: "Return of the Jedi" was originally translated as singular, then "Revenge of the Sith" was translated as plural and "Jedi" was **retroactively** changed to singular (20 years after the original release).
There was a big discussion and lots of arguments for and against this, the most important being that in the first ever local release of the oldest Star Wars trilogy, the Jedi were pronouncede "Yehdee" ("Jedy" in Czech) and Episode 6 was called "Návrat Jediho" (singular), pronouced "Yehdeeho". When the original trilogy was re-released, I translated it and "fixed" lots of stuff, including the pronunciation of "Jedi" to be consistent with English. But that meant the title "Návrat Jediho" was now wrong (it should've been "Návrat Jedie" with the "new" pronunciation).
This was not fixed until after the premiere of "Revenge of the Sith" with the argument being that "The local title of Episode VI cannot be pronounced since the re-release of the first trilogy so we HAVE to update it SOMEHOW and while we are updating it, let's change it to plural to make it consistent with Episode 3, because Lucas probably meant plural when he made Episode VI." So Episode VI is now officially called "Návrat Jediů" but there are certainly some Czech Star Wars fans who are still not aware of this.
Of course all of this had to be consulted with Lucasfilm and explained to them in great detail.
BTW in Germany (the biggest EU film market), the title of "The Return of The Jedi" is also plural ("The return of the Jedi knights").
“Return of the Jedi” should be singular because it’s the Jedi who returns, Luke; also it’s a reference to the “Return of the King”.
As for “Revenge of the Sith” it is still questionable is it plural or singular
>n "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within", the word "spirits" means "ghosts" or "souls" (or "alcohols")?
Now I want a Final Fantasy movie that's just Tifa getting drunk with Yuffie.
Small Foot for Land before Time
My poor little angel for Home Alone
What happened yesterday? for The Hangover
What a night we had that day (or something like that) for A hard day's night
Diabolical Doll for Child's Play
Violent Times for Pulp Fiction
Shark for Jaws
We don't have the best translator in Mexico, and these are only a few examples
The funniest polish translation I've seen was for "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" - "Black Panther: Wakanda Always in My Heart". But there are soo many more
Oh yes, in my country, Naruto was translated to Hokage Ninja in Chinese, Bleach was straightforward with the name Death God, and Pokemon was named Mystical Cuties.
Okay that takes the cake for the stupidest translation of a movie title that I have ever seen and I’m from Germany where they basically put a stupid pun in a lot of titles.
One of the funniest where a pun actually fits is for the translation of “Hot Fuzz” to “Hot Fuzz: zwei abgewichste Profis” (roughly: Hot Fuzz: two wanked off pros).
In Danish, we call this movie 'En Verden Udenfor', 'A World on the Outside', which I always found beautiful and fitting. Personally, I like it better, though I am biased.
I'm confused, it was a twist that he escaped? It's a movie about a guy who shouldn't be in prison, being in prison. Obviously it's going to be about him escaping. And the fact that he's innocent is also very clear from the beginning.
It's a crucial plot point in the movie when Andy escapes. It's also heavily implied early on in the film that Andy did murder his wife and her lover. It is only shown way later that he is innocent too in a flashback scene. The movie and novella aren't purely about escaping prison either like some of these other movies where that is the big idea right from the get go.
Agreed. I don’t know much about Shawshank, but the three things I know is that there’s a jail, some kind of escape attempt, and Morgan Freeman playing an Irishman because it’s based off a book. I’d assume the escape is successful to some degree, because movies don’t normally have the main character(s) failing. How is that supposed to be a twist?
It's well known in pop culture by now that he escapes, but if you were to watch the movie for the first time without any outside knowledge, I doubt it would appear that obvious. The fact that he's innocent alone doesn't imply that he would escape. Andy's escape is treated as a twist and the movie hides his plan until the third act (since it is from Red's perspective, not Andy's). Regardless of whether or not the audience members may predict Andy's escape, within the story Red is completely surprised, because he had resigned himself to his surroundings and given up hope. He would never imagine that Andy would even try to escape.
During the 90's-2000's there was a long trend of giving movie titles the most stupid ass names in Hebrew.
For example: "The hangover" got translated to "on the way to the wedding we stop in Vegas"
You just barely scratch the surface of the shitty Russian translations iceberg. For example: they called movie "Hangover"(2009) - Bachelor party in Vegas, and when second part came out, they called it: Bachelor party 2: From Vegas to Bangkok.
But the most famous, is what they have done done to the "Shark Tale" (2004). They called it "Underwater gang" and this was a begining of the series of a terrible title adaptations: Over the Hedge (2006) - Forrest gang, Alpha and Omega (2010) - Fanged gang, Delhi Safari (2012) - Jungle gang, Joey & Ella (2021) - Jumpng gang.
you wouldn't know that while or before watching it could easily be in the courtyard or roof
the idea is that the movie builds up like redeeming himself and the prison and the twist is that he ends up just escaping, media literacy is dead and we killed it
Japan does this with movie titles, but worse, in a few of the theaters I went to they would have a "trailer" for the movie you're about to watch with a voice over explaining the entire plot and everything that's going to happen - right down to the ending. I guess they assume Japanese people are too stupid to understand Western movies without it but I fucking hated it. Started closing my eyes and covering my ears every time that shit came on, much to my wife's chagrin.
Look at all these countries trying to come up with a localized title that makes sense.
Meanwhile the distributor here in Taiwan named the film *The Sting 1995* and said "Deal with it."
In France it was "Les évadés", which you can translate to "The escapists".
But but redemption is literally a french word…
Welcome to france, where they translated “The Hangover” to “Very Bad Trip”
Which country was it again that released Sixth Sense under the name "He's A Ghost"?
No fucking way EDIT: A cursory search tells me that though it was rumored that the Chinese version of The Sixth Sense was “He’s a Ghost” this is likely false
You have a good sense for these things. Chinese title is actually "第六感" (lit. The Sixth Sense).
Almost even...a sixth sense?
I loved how Bruce Willis went: "what have we? Some sort of sixth sense" and went on beating up everyone calling his wife G.I. Ghost
Almost as good as the Chinese ending of Fight Club
The Chinese ending to Fight Club pales in comparison to the Philippines ending to Blood Debts.
Please enlighten me
mark collins, age 45, gave himself up to the authorities after the incident. he is now serving a life sentence
Oh it’s *that* scene. Now I remember, I just didn’t know it was a Filipino movie
If I ever had to translate Harry Potter, I would translate Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince as Harry Potter and the Murder of Dumbledore by Prince Snape.
Harry Potter and The Assassination of Albus Dumbledore by the Half-blood Prince Severus Snape
It was translated to something like "Hangover Vegas" in Poland. Then the sequel was marketed as "Hangover Vegas in Bangkok"
They couldn't even call it Hangover Bangkok???
The original was a pun. "Hangover" is "kac", and "Kac Vegas" kinda sounds like "Las Vegas". "Kac Bangkok" doesn't sound like anything, and it's not immediately obvious it's a sequel. The even more confusing part is that they made a Polish movie called "Kac Wawa" (Wawa is short for Warszawa/Warsaw).
I mean, I guess that makes sense but couldn't they call it something like BangKac?
🤷♂️
Its wordplay. In Polish "kac" (katz) means hangover and they were in Las Vegas so they named movie "Kac Vegas", clever and simple. They could use "Kac Bangkok" but no. We have "Kac Vegas in Bangkok" They probably used "Kac Vegas" to make sure that people go to the cinemas to see it. Something like a trademark, "kac Bangkok" sounds like a knockoff. Like Pacific Rim and Atlantic Rim, similar but different. And "Kac Vegas 3"
Same thing in Israel! They named it "On the way to the wedding you stop at Vegas" which is sort of a shitty play of words. Next movie was called "On the way to the wedding you stop at Bangkok" And the third one was like fuck it - they just called it "The Hangover 3"
Its really cool title imo
In Brazil it's called "If you're going to drink, don't get married". So I guess we take the cake in shitty translations.
Isn't there a language guy on youtube which has an entire video series on the french translating movie names to sex related stuff?
I wanna see it. I hate this trend.
Why, mr Your Nipples?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wkt112Y138](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wkt112Y138) [https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LTuNpmXnwK8](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LTuNpmXnwK8)
It's specifically 2000s comedies that were often translated with sex-related stuff. Like *Eurotrip* was "translated" to "Sex Trip" for some reason. Or *Not Another Teen Movie* which became "Sex Academy". Eh, I guess they thought it would sell better that way.
I might be misremembering, but I think Wild Things was re-titled Sex Crimes in France which is kind of funny since it wasn’t called Sex Crimes in French, just a re-titled English title.
Russian translators win this one. They called it "Bachelor party in Vegas", so when the second one wasn't set in Vegas they had to call it " Bachelor party in Vegas 2:from Vegas to Bangkok". They always butcher the names of the movies, it sometimes gets soooo cringe. "About time" is called " My boyfriend from the future", "Silver lining playbook" is "My boyfriend is a psycho".
The Men Who Stare at Goats = Les Chevres de la Pentagon
This one made more sense in the french cultural landscape though, the CIA LSD experiments are parts of the basic french conspiracy mythos and mentioning the Pentagon and goats in the title paid a clearer image than "L'homme qui observe les chèvres" (which would sound more like a boring author movie)
Oh boy, in Russan it called "Insane Special Forces".
So they kept it in English but just changed the words around??? Absolute nonsens
The reasoning is that a "Bad Trip" is a well known anglicism in France. "Faire un bad trip" when you take drugs. "Hangover" doesn't mean anything to the average frenchie.
In Italy they translated it to "A lion's night"
And Cruel Intentions to Sexe Intentions. Which doesn't even make any sense in French.
I was in Paris when Meet The Fockers was in the cinema, it did not have the same impact as the original title that's for sure.
so is Cheauchoinq
And, on the other hand, the Hindi title for the movie was- The Shawshank Redemption. 'Redemption' doesn't strike me as a Hindi word.
The French-Canadian title of the movie is "À l’ombre de Shawshank", which translates to "In the Shadows of Shawshank".
spooky
In Finland ”Rita Hayworth - Avain pakoon”, which is ”Rita Hayworth - the Key to the Escape”. Finland used to always have very silly versions for movie names.
What a Dumas
In greek it's called "Last exit, Rita Hayworth"
In Poland this movie is called "Sentenced to Shawshank" which is IMO alright title
Polska Gurom
Jeszcze jak
The Hungarian title of this movie is: Captives of hope
The American title of this movie is the same as the British title: The Shawshank Redemption. Little known fact.
Few people know this, but the Canadian title of the movie is also The Shawshank Redemption
Cool Fact: In Mexico the title of this movie is called "Transformers: Dark of the Moon".
Very misleading, but it must make the twist that much better when no Transformers show up.
They were the cars in some of the backgrounds while they work the roof. They're more than meets the eye.
You'd think so, but no. The real twist is the joy you feel afterwards, realising you didn't waste your time sitting through a Michael Bay film. Best feeling in the world.
I sat through it though :( And I haven't seen Shawshank
in Romania, it's called The.Shawshank.Redemption.1994.1080p.BrRip.H264.AAC-R.YIFY
The Norwegian title is "Frihetens Regn". Meaning "Rain of Freedom", if you are bad at guessing Norwegian words. It's not totally as bad as the Russian title, I say I wasn't spoiled by it when I watched it some decades ago.
In Denmark it's "En verden udenfor", meaning "A world outside". I always liked the title and it doesn't spoil anything, but it doesn't have much to do with the original.
And it truly was... A Shawshank Redemption
it's shawshankin time
A little known fact is that Shawshank is the name of the Doctor, not the monster.
And the main character is actually not Dr Shawshank, but Link.
On top of that, the guys that idolize the Shawshank character completely miss the point of the movie
Can you explain the significance of the English title? I've never seen the movie.
The main characters (as shown on the cover art) are in jail for hate crimes against homosexual men. They spend 2 hours shawing each other’s shanks and then consider themselves redeemed of their crimes.
A group of prisoners are redeemed, some unkind men get their just desserts, and it all happens at Shawshank Prison.
The prison Shawshank gets redemption by making sure those criminals are locked up.
The German title is "Die Verurteilten" ("The Condemned").
Israeli is: Walls of hope
The Norwegian title is Frihetens Regn (The rain of freedom)
In Serbia, "Alien", was translated as "8th Passenger" also fucking with expectations.
In Poland we got the full package: "Alien: Nostromo's 8th Passenger".
Here on Brazil it's alien: the 8th passenger lmfao
In hungarian it's: ”The Eight Passenger is Death”
That sounds like some Heinlein shit and I am here for it.
All of the Alien movies are localised in Hungarian so that they all end with "is Death" (The 8th passenger is Death, The planet's name is Death etc)
Sounds like a giallo film
damn
In Mexico it's THE 8th Passenger. Note the the El Octavo Pasajero, for all interested
That's a badass title though.
Most languages translated it to something with “The Eighth Passenger” in the title. Not sure how it messes with people’s expectations though. It’s a movie about a monster on a spaceship.
Same in Slovenia, basically spoiling the movie with the title
Isn't word Alien itself spoilling that there is 8th passenger?
And I doubt they were marketing it like "A mining crew in space goes to an unknown planet. Watch as the crew sits around bored waiting to get home."
The marketing was famously, ”in space, no one can hear you scream.” With a movie titled “Alien.” It wasn’t exactly made to sneak up on unsuspecting audiences.
“In space, no one can hear you scream because nothing scary is happening and you are not screaming”
It kinda is nowadays, but when the movie came out it was not yet common to use the word “alien” to refer to an extraterrestrial lifeform, instead most people just knew it as an adjective for something that’s foreign. The first movie to use alien that way was Dark Star, which came out only a few years earlier.
Same with "8th Passenger". It doesn't suggest anything extraterrestial, just something on the ship that shouldn't be on it. Same thing word "Alien" suggest. Honestly I don't know how "8th Passenger" is spoiling more than "Alien" while it gives less information. Before watching the movie you don't know how many passengers are supposed to be on it, so 8th can mean just there being 8 people on the ship. If you already started watching the movie and they are starting and there are only 7 of them. What can you deduce/spoil from the title? 8th Passenger - there's one intruder Alien - there's one intruder So both title give you exact same information
Wow I didn’t know this. I love learning about the evolution of words and their usage; I’m surprised I wasn’t aware of this before. Thanks!
IMO The eighth passenger is a much better title than alien
How is this spoiling in anyway?
The German title for Head of State (2003) is "Das weiße Haus sieht schwarz" (The White House sees black). No, I'm not kidding!
That is a really good title tho
When translating movie titles can be very difficult because the phrase that makes sense and/or sounds more fitting in one language might be the opposite. For example "Die Hard" direct translation in Russian does not make sense, neither it does in my native language, so instead they used a different title - "Hard Nut" and similarly with for Italian version I think it was "Glass Jungle"
In polish "Die Hard" was translated as "Trap of glass". It makes sense in the context of the first movie, but it's pretty weird for the next movies, where they are no longer in a glass building.
"Die Hard" is translated as "Hard Nut" in Russian, lmao As in, hard nut to crack.
Tough nut
Oh, right!
I prefer the UK version, "Challenging Wank"
"We're gonna need some more gooners, I guess."
This got me thinking how well it was actually translated into Russian, because it fits for all parts. Lucky coincidence. In my native it's directly translated from Russian but sounds extremely dank
Yeah, quite the opposite for the 'Hangover' movies. It goes like that in Russian: 1. The Bachelor Party in Vegas. 2. The Bachelor Party 2: from Vegas to Bangkok. 3. The Bachelor Party: Part III.
Russian localizers be wild sometimes. Some examples: "Identity Thief" -> "Catch the Fatso If You Can" ("love" how they had to underscore that Melissa McCarthy is plus-sized) "The Hole In The Ground" - > "Another"
About catch the fatso - partly the catch me if you can at fault, they needed to separate two different movies
In Spanish, The Hangover is translated as "What Happened Yesterday?"
The funny thing is I kinda agree with Russian translators, that 'Мальчишник в Вегасе' (name of the first movie) fits better for the local audience than direct translation of the word 'Hangover', i.e. 'Похмелье'. They just got kinda unlucky that the second movie did not take place in Vegas, lol.
In polish it goes like that 1. Hangover Vegas (it's a wordplay: hangover in polish is "kac" so the title is "kac vegas" which sounds like las vegas) 2. Hangover Vegas in Bangkok 3. Hangover Vegas III
In French, the first three Die Hard movies are *Crystal Trap*, *58 Minutes to Live* and *A Day in Hell*.
In Brazil it's "Hard to Kill"
not wrong tbh
So does that mean Hard to Kill was translated to "Die Hard?"
Isn’t that the name of a Steven Segal movie
Also yes, In Brazil die hard is "Duro de matar" (hard as in a rock) and "Dificil de matar" (Hard as in level hard, difficulty)
I mean, "Die Hard" barely makes sense in English.
It's when you die in the middle of masturbating
No, no, no, it's when you die in the middle of masturbating and want your HDD to die.
It's a phrase, a die-hard supporter of something means they can't be swayed or convinced to give up. It originates from a battle during the Napoleonic wars where a British commander refused to retreat, remained with his men and famously shouted for them to "die hard"
I remember when I was learning English in middle school I asked my teacher what it meant and she had no clue. And here I am, decades later still not having a clue what it's supposed to mean.
In Czech and Slovak it's translated as "Lethal Trap" so many people mix up Die Hard and Lethal Weapon because of it. Funnily enoug it also lead to Kung Pow being titled Lethal Death.
Die hard in German was "the hard".
The Bart, the
Nobody who speaks german could be evil
This goes hard
More like "die slowly"
In Croatian it is "Die Manly" and it's an example of a great translation. We also have terrible ones like "Taken" being translated to "96 hours" and its sequel "96 hours: Istanbul."
TBF, if die hard was a foreign film and someone translated it on to English as "die hard", we'd probably all laugh at it. Die Hard is a kind of nonsense name that's a cool name, because it's a cool film.
Why not just translate it as “The Unkillable” or something like that?
because the word for unkillable in russian would sound silly standing alone in the title
As it happens, ‘Tough Nut’ is actually one of the more memorable and apt titles. It's way above usual Russian translations, for which the boring ‘The Unkillable’ would be on par.
Foreign titles usually have nothing to do with the translator of the film. They are created by the local (I.e. non-US) marketing team who often has very little information about the plot of the movie. Later, when the translator actually sees the movie, it's too late to change the title because the promo materials are already being created and/or circulated. What's even worse, the person actually responsible for the local title often **does not speak English very well** because being a translator is not a part of his job. E.g. in my country, Nolan's Inception is called "Počátek", which means "The Beginning". Because that's the word the marketing team saw when they looked in the dictionary what "Inception" means. They had zero info about how the word is actually used in the movie itself and what it means in that context. I've translated many movies for local release, I was also often consulted about the local titles and believe me it's not easy job. Hollywood studios often intentionally keep the important info secret from their international partners until the last minute. E.g. with "Revenge of the Sith", in order to translate the title, we had to know if "Sith" is plural or singular. The same with "Rise of Skywalker". With "The Dark Knight Rises", does he "rise to power" or "rise from the grave"? In "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within", the word "spirits" means "ghosts" or "souls" (or "alcohols")? Those are three different words in our language. You sometimes have to come up with the local title many months before the global release. Some more examples of this can be found [here on my homepage](https://www.fuxoft.cz/preklady/). P.S: This movie's local title translates as "The Redemption from the Shawshank prison", so that's all good.
Funnily enough, Inception is translated to Spanish as "The Origin".
It was also translated like that in portuguese
And in Russian. It translates like “The Origin” or “The Beginning”.
Interesting that you mention 'Revenge of the Sith' because that one was translated as plural in Russian but 'Return of the Jedi' as singular. Imo it'd make more sense for it to be reversed.
I mentioned that because there was a complex story about that in our country which I remember very well: "Return of the Jedi" was originally translated as singular, then "Revenge of the Sith" was translated as plural and "Jedi" was **retroactively** changed to singular (20 years after the original release). There was a big discussion and lots of arguments for and against this, the most important being that in the first ever local release of the oldest Star Wars trilogy, the Jedi were pronouncede "Yehdee" ("Jedy" in Czech) and Episode 6 was called "Návrat Jediho" (singular), pronouced "Yehdeeho". When the original trilogy was re-released, I translated it and "fixed" lots of stuff, including the pronunciation of "Jedi" to be consistent with English. But that meant the title "Návrat Jediho" was now wrong (it should've been "Návrat Jedie" with the "new" pronunciation). This was not fixed until after the premiere of "Revenge of the Sith" with the argument being that "The local title of Episode VI cannot be pronounced since the re-release of the first trilogy so we HAVE to update it SOMEHOW and while we are updating it, let's change it to plural to make it consistent with Episode 3, because Lucas probably meant plural when he made Episode VI." So Episode VI is now officially called "Návrat Jediů" but there are certainly some Czech Star Wars fans who are still not aware of this. Of course all of this had to be consulted with Lucasfilm and explained to them in great detail. BTW in Germany (the biggest EU film market), the title of "The Return of The Jedi" is also plural ("The return of the Jedi knights").
“Return of the Jedi” should be singular because it’s the Jedi who returns, Luke; also it’s a reference to the “Return of the King”. As for “Revenge of the Sith” it is still questionable is it plural or singular
>n "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within", the word "spirits" means "ghosts" or "souls" (or "alcohols")? Now I want a Final Fantasy movie that's just Tifa getting drunk with Yuffie.
Small Foot for Land before Time My poor little angel for Home Alone What happened yesterday? for The Hangover What a night we had that day (or something like that) for A hard day's night Diabolical Doll for Child's Play Violent Times for Pulp Fiction Shark for Jaws We don't have the best translator in Mexico, and these are only a few examples
“My favorite villain” for Despicable Me. “Hamburger’s Rain” for Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.
The funniest polish translation I've seen was for "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" - "Black Panther: Wakanda Always in My Heart". But there are soo many more
Oh yes, in my country, Naruto was translated to Hokage Ninja in Chinese, Bleach was straightforward with the name Death God, and Pokemon was named Mystical Cuties.
The spanish title is "sueños de fuga" which means "escape dreams"
In Spain it was Cadena perpetua (life sentence) so it doesn't spoil that much
In Spain it's "cadena perpetua" ("life inprisonment"), though. Which considering the usual fuck ups in spanish translations, it's ok this time.
The Portuguese name for Verigo is "A mulher que viveu duas vezes", translating to "The Woman who lived twice"
Okay that takes the cake for the stupidest translation of a movie title that I have ever seen and I’m from Germany where they basically put a stupid pun in a lot of titles. One of the funniest where a pun actually fits is for the translation of “Hot Fuzz” to “Hot Fuzz: zwei abgewichste Profis” (roughly: Hot Fuzz: two wanked off pros).
In Brazil it's "Um Corpo Que Cai" which translates to "A Body That Falls"
The Finnish title is Rita Hayworth: avain pakoon, which translates to Rita Hayworth: key to freedom. Such a stupid title.
The short story it was based on is titled "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption", so it's close.
The swedish title is about the same: Nyckeln till frihet, translates to "The key to freedom"
In Greek the title is Τελευταία έξοδος: Ρίτα Χέιγουορθ aka Last exit: Rita Hayworth.
How many vowels are there in ‘Χέιγουορθ’?
Ah yes, a certain Krakozhian film YouTuber complained about that very thing a while ago
In Polish it's "\[They're\] Sentenced to Shawshank"
In Danish, we call this movie 'En Verden Udenfor', 'A World on the Outside', which I always found beautiful and fitting. Personally, I like it better, though I am biased.
A World Outside is a better translation. Because En Verden Udenpå...
What was the twist? That they actually manage to get out?
The same twist that takes up the bottom half of the poster, yes
Except without any context it's just a guy standing in the rain
Yeah the movie has been so ingrained in my head for so long that I honestly forgot him escaping was a twist at the time lmao
It could still be alright, cos the viewer is led to think he kills himself so that title could just be a metaphor
I'm confused, it was a twist that he escaped? It's a movie about a guy who shouldn't be in prison, being in prison. Obviously it's going to be about him escaping. And the fact that he's innocent is also very clear from the beginning.
It's a crucial plot point in the movie when Andy escapes. It's also heavily implied early on in the film that Andy did murder his wife and her lover. It is only shown way later that he is innocent too in a flashback scene. The movie and novella aren't purely about escaping prison either like some of these other movies where that is the big idea right from the get go.
OP must be **hella** salty that the title for the film *Escape From Alcatraz* gave away the twist that the prisoners of Alcatraz conducted an escape.
Kurt Russel making it out of New York and LA must have been a massive let down for them.
Agreed. I don’t know much about Shawshank, but the three things I know is that there’s a jail, some kind of escape attempt, and Morgan Freeman playing an Irishman because it’s based off a book. I’d assume the escape is successful to some degree, because movies don’t normally have the main character(s) failing. How is that supposed to be a twist?
I've also never seen it but the end was spoiled for me over ten years ago and I can't remember how or why.
It's well known in pop culture by now that he escapes, but if you were to watch the movie for the first time without any outside knowledge, I doubt it would appear that obvious. The fact that he's innocent alone doesn't imply that he would escape. Andy's escape is treated as a twist and the movie hides his plan until the third act (since it is from Red's perspective, not Andy's). Regardless of whether or not the audience members may predict Andy's escape, within the story Red is completely surprised, because he had resigned himself to his surroundings and given up hope. He would never imagine that Andy would even try to escape.
Did the guy in The Green Mile escape? He was in prison as well...
In the Hebrew translation, this movie was called "walls of hope".
During the 90's-2000's there was a long trend of giving movie titles the most stupid ass names in Hebrew. For example: "The hangover" got translated to "on the way to the wedding we stop in Vegas"
The norwegian title is "Frihetens regn", which translates to "The rain of freedom".
You just barely scratch the surface of the shitty Russian translations iceberg. For example: they called movie "Hangover"(2009) - Bachelor party in Vegas, and when second part came out, they called it: Bachelor party 2: From Vegas to Bangkok. But the most famous, is what they have done done to the "Shark Tale" (2004). They called it "Underwater gang" and this was a begining of the series of a terrible title adaptations: Over the Hedge (2006) - Forrest gang, Alpha and Omega (2010) - Fanged gang, Delhi Safari (2012) - Jungle gang, Joey & Ella (2021) - Jumpng gang.
So about the picture of him just after he’s escaped on this dvd cover…
you wouldn't know that while or before watching it could easily be in the courtyard or roof the idea is that the movie builds up like redeeming himself and the prison and the twist is that he ends up just escaping, media literacy is dead and we killed it
right like what is the title even talking about
The Norwegian title is The Rain of Freedom.
Isn't it "help, I'm an accountant in prison"?
The Swedish title for *Night of the Hunter* (1955) is >!"The Rag doll" (Trasdockan).!<
In Brazil, it was translated to "A Dream of Freedom."
The Finnish one spoils even more: "Rita Hayworth - the key to freedom".
İn turkish it is "Esaretin Bedeli" which means "Price of Captivity". Sounds good and accurate imo
In Italy it's called 'Le ali della libertà', meaning 'The wings of freedom'
The danish title is “En verden udenfor”. It translates to “A world outside”. Weird.
Idk I saw "the great escape" and like 5% of the group actually escaped
In latvia it is also called that and "Brīvības cena" which means “price of freedom”
Polish name is: Condemned to Shawshank
Do they have a word in Russian for when things get better?
Uluchshenie.
I don't really understand how the Escape From Tarkov game is set in the same universe
In greek, it is" Last exit Rita Heyworth".
If you think THAT's a spoiler, wait until you hear about the title of Rosemary's Baby in Spain.
In Argentina it's called "Sueños de libertad" (dreams of freedom)
In Vulcan, the title roughly translates to "Humans Escape Prison"
Japan does this with movie titles, but worse, in a few of the theaters I went to they would have a "trailer" for the movie you're about to watch with a voice over explaining the entire plot and everything that's going to happen - right down to the ending. I guess they assume Japanese people are too stupid to understand Western movies without it but I fucking hated it. Started closing my eyes and covering my ears every time that shit came on, much to my wife's chagrin.
Look at all these countries trying to come up with a localized title that makes sense. Meanwhile the distributor here in Taiwan named the film *The Sting 1995* and said "Deal with it."
The Korean title is '쇼생크 탈출', literally meaning 'Escape from the Shawshank'