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Incredible Chinese Subtitles for “Das Leben der Anderen”

by on Thursday, September 2, 2010 43 comments

The Lives of Others (2006)

From KDS:

Subtitling to this level, I can only bow down

Incredible Chinese subtitles for the German movie "Das Leben der Anderen" (The Lives Of Others).

Incredible Chinese subtitles for the German movie "Das Leben der Anderen" (The Lives Of Others).

Incredible Chinese subtitles for the German movie "Das Leben der Anderen" (The Lives Of Others).

Incredible Chinese subtitles for the German movie "Das Leben der Anderen" (The Lives Of Others).

Incredible Chinese subtitles for the German movie "Das Leben der Anderen" (The Lives Of Others).

Incredible Chinese subtitles for the German movie "Das Leben der Anderen" (The Lives Of Others).

Incredible Chinese subtitles for the German movie "Das Leben der Anderen" (The Lives Of Others).

Incredible Chinese subtitles for the German movie "Das Leben der Anderen" (The Lives Of Others).

Comments from KDS:

马勒格彼得:

This is too niubi~ emoticon

gestapo:

This cannot help but be admired! emoticon

富贵不能淫:

There’s nothing new about translated subtitles, but the key for everyone to carefully note is that the translations are on the original screen, and what more, match the script/typeface, color, even the perspective, for example on the newspaper, the words are larger up close and smaller further away.

Truly too NB.
emoticonemoticonemoticon

御宅皇帝:

I can deeply empathize, the subtitler must have spend an extreme amount of effort and energy to do this.

色更伐:

This subtitling group is incredible…What he made was subtitles, what he won is respect. I bow before this professionalism.

Ｒａｙ:

So professional.emoticon

[This subtitler] has already reached the level of painting/calligraphy.emoticon

饭特稀了~:

emoticon
Are these the official subtitles or were they made by a hobbyist?

Esc:

Why is it that in any country, the hobbyists always do a better job than the professionals?
Same for weather forecasting, and now subtitling/captioning.

土包子:

This is the future trend of subtitling groups. emoticon

小海豚:

Godly subtitles! [I] like the script/typeface they used. emoticon

herrshi:

German film, the original title is “Das Leben der Anderen“, translated into 《窃听风暴》["Qieting Fengbao"], the best foreign language film of the 2007 Oscars.

I saw it already a long time ago, but with subtitles of this level/caliber, it is really worth watching one more time.

氧化钙:

This film is worth this kind of subtitling.

有句刚句:

“The Lives of Others“, the actress’s body is really nice.emoticon

The Lives of Others (2006)

Das Leben der Anderen. chinaSMACK personals.

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43 Comments

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  1. Bob
    Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 1:39 pm

    I wonder if they did they same with the subtitles in other languages

    Reply
  2. terroir
    Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 2:01 pm

    Chinese language nerds +1.

    As well as the translation may be (Ich don’t spraken ze Deutch）, I still pine for creativity.

    Chinese subtitles for “Downfall”. Get to it, Chinese internets.

    Reply
    • Bob
      Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 2:09 pm

      wouldn’t it be better if the Chinese came up with their own memes?

      Reply
      • terroir
        Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 6:00 pm

        Why, because “play off keyboard cat” is only suitable for western audiences? While Youtube may have a globalizing effect and be a waste of worktime with all its memes, it is also a awesome tool for international communication and harmony.. if it was allowed in China. Instead with the GFW, you have an isolated world view on the one hand and then on the other you have awesome work by a few individuals who literally open a window for approximately one billion other people. Like Fauna.

        I love the progress of chinese internets as well as the grass mud horse, but “memes with Chinese characteristics” on the whole are pretty weak. “I just came here for soy sauce” vs “oh I see what you did there”: I think the west and freedom comes out on top. Also, amateur photoshop skills are not on par.

        Honestly though, I do want to see subtitles for “Downfall”. If there is something that is made more awesome by faux subtitling, then putonghua absolutely needs to get in on that. If I have to say it, I will: Chinese subtitles on the whole are terrible. Chinese keep telling me that the plot of the Matrix is incomprenhensible as though it is Memento or Mullholland Dr or Inception.

        Reply
        • lordofreimes
          Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 11:44 pm

          I believe the MJ Beat It sync is the Chinese equivalent to Downfall meme. Its smarter, more tech sophisticated and involves a similar process – instead of replacing words, its replacing music.

          However, I don’t see how freedom is relevant. The biggest western memes out there are stupid and the majority come from 4chan. Downfall is not hilarious. Rickroll, Epic Sax guy, trolololo all have nothing to do with freedom and are just funny because they are idiotic. Same goes to keyboard cat…

          Same goes for China. The majority of memes in all countries are probably stupid ones.
          And I would also say chinese stuff like river crab, green dam, and the ten mysterious beasts of baidu are ways to protest/ subjugate/rebel against government power. Where are these examples in the West?

          And don’t forget, Downfall will not directly translate in China. Hitler did nothing to the Chinese nor any other asian ethnicity.
          The chinese equivalent will be some video to do with the japanese, which no doubt will come under fire for being rascist (since there is no clear separation that exists for the Japanase as there is between ‘Nazis’ and ‘Germans’).

          Reply
  3. NoRacistSmack
    Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 2:28 pm

    Good! this is creative! definitely the future trend of subtitling!

    Reply
    • NoRacistSmack
      Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 2:33 pm

      BTW, anyone watched this movie? How good it is?

      Reply
      • xmcx
        Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 2:56 pm

        Any European over 45 has been exposed to lovely ‘life in the Communist block’, and is usually glad with this (vivid) snapshot made with modern filmstuffs. The movie has won wide appraisal in Europe all the way to Germany as far as I know. I don’t know how it appeals to Ukrainians or Belarussians. I’ve seen it and thought it was a bit highty tighty with caricatural intellectuals, which is typically what I would say as someone who was never old enough (nor taught or encouraged-my education pretended East Germans were’ doing fine in their way’ till the very last minute) to feel for those on the losing side of the Iron Curtain.
        My main point is that I’m “very” surprised this would make it in red China! Is it one of the 20 foreign-made movies allowed in theatres each year? Is this thing sold on DVD in the big stores? Or is it a fansub that has been downloaded a few hundred times? I wonder how Chinese over some age, having had their share of thought police, feel about this tale of comradery with East Germans. Do the youths watching this somehow feel that these methods would be nothing exceptional in modern China?

        Reply
        • NoRacistSmack
          Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 3:24 pm

          Thanks for the into bro. Sounds like an interesting movie. Maybe a 1984 style one? I can’t comment on the questions you asked since I was neither born in Mao’s era nor have watch the movie myself. I would say China today is more rainbow than red xD

          Just checked it on douban (largest Chinese music/movie/books review site) and it has a very high rating 9/10. There were over six hundred reviews there and you may find your answers by reading them. Most douban readers were born after Mao’s death and they deem themselves the new generation urban elites.

          http://movie.douban.com/subject/1900841/

          Reply
        • Rat Sass
          Friday, September 3, 2010 at 12:07 am

          yes, I’m surprised and glad to see this film available in China, and also impressed with the care of the subtitlist. well done.

          Reply
  4. @@
    Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 3:03 pm

    wowzza, next thing you know, they’d be having Fringe style titles for subs

    Reply
  5. Pong Lenis
    Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 3:16 pm

    The point is if the original meaning is translated correctly. I have some doubts that the Chinese media gestapo will translate the many items that are critical of commies. That movie shows a very bleak picture of the ex-DDR.

    Reply
  6. Jordan
    Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 3:17 pm

    With the right equipments, even I can do it.

    Reply
  7. KeninChina
    Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 4:22 pm

    That’s not just adding translations, that is putting the translation into part of the production, which, i might add, is very very smart especially if you plan to increase international box office sales.
    *applaud*

    Reply
    • Jordan
      Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 11:35 pm

      This is old news.

      Last year I saw a movie…forgot the title…it was an American film, but the DVD I saw was a Russian copy, anyway, the main character went to an ATM, and it displayed Russian on the ATM screen. Now the guy was in the US, and I was thinking what ATM in America would display Russian? Then I realized it was a subtitle.

      Reply
  8. yoyo
    Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 6:31 pm

    ???i don’t know how to say

    Reply
  9. ldl
    Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 8:54 pm

    好敬业。hao jing ye!

    Reply
  10. chlpd
    Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 9:22 pm

    Amazing those people

    Reply
  11. mrnightcat
    Friday, September 3, 2010 at 8:58 am

    It wouldn’t make a difference really whether or not it was suitable for distribution in China to be honest. All that means is that it won’t get an official cinema or DVD release. Some might be surprised to hear this, but here in the Chinese internet circle, the P2P and video streaming world is just as big and more free than the US or Europe, because the government doesn’t give a toss whatsoever to copyright violation. They might say they do for PR reasons, but won’t take any real action.

    Sites like skyme.com, tom53.com and pptv.com are only three examples, and are nothing compared to the massive VeryCD database (mods, please remove these links if they are not appropriate). The first three sites are streaming movie sites, where you literally click on a movie and it starts playing in DVD or cinema critic pre-release quality, depending on the title. I was watching Avatar’s critic screener the day after I saw it in cinemas. I’ve been using these all the time in China – after all, it’s not like you can buy more than 10% of the films there officially here, and I’m supporting the piracy industry by buying a fake DVD, right? Haha, weird logic.

    Comb through those websites and the VeryCD database and you’ll find a million and one films that would never get through Chinese censors for an official release. They’re all on those sites for P2P download and streaming because when it comes to the internet, copyright and ‘unofficial’ movie releases (i.e. in pirate DVD stores), the authorities don’t care in the slightest, and no big foreign company really wants to rock the boat in a big way by demanding the Chinese government to take proper action. Besides, most Chinese police officers probably have their own collection anyway, why would they want to put a stop to it? Heck, I bought that film ‘Antichrist’ on pirate DVD from my local shop here in China – do you think that would even get to the censors’ front door?

    As for the subtitles, that may be slightly different. As you can guess, a lot of films which are not released officially in China, and do not already have a subtitle translation in Taiwan/HK, etc, require work from the ground up on subtitling. Visiting the sites above, which not only contain films but entire TV shows (Chinese and foreign), you can see that this is the underground work of a huge army of Chinese netizens. The scale is unbelievable.

    I for one have never seen this film available in my local DVD shop here in China (anyone may correct me if they have), so I guess it probably wasn’t released. Not necessarily because it was rejected by censors mind you, but more because the government has a quota on how many foreign films are brought here per year and stuff from Hollywood and the biggest film producers end up with priority. I’d say it’s more likely that these are lovingly created fan subtitles. Sometimes the netizens don’t get it quite right either – often when I’m watching a film with my girlfriend I read the Chinese subtitles too, and I can tell if the subtitles are avoiding the real meanings, avoiding profanity or simply aren’t translated correctly. This doesn’t happen too often though. Her English is fantastic too though so she doesn’t rely on subtitles for English-spoken films.

    Reply
  12. Shanghairen
    Friday, September 3, 2010 at 12:44 pm

    Of course the Chinese think it’s great that the subtitles are aesthetically pleasing, but they won’t care if the subtitles are an accurate reflection of the original German.

    Reply
  13. Paolo
    Saturday, September 4, 2010 at 7:20 am

    hard or soft subs?

    Reply
  14. Hongjian
    Saturday, September 4, 2010 at 10:10 pm

    The movie is fucking great in the original german version i watched.

    And it’s nice to see that this movie can be shown in China, even if just in the internet.

    But, anyway, Orwell’s 1984 is also being sold in China and Chinese students are also required to read it at school, so censorship is not an argument here.

    Certainly, the DDR and China today are completely different cases of authoritarism, so any possible relation to the state, as apparent for the Chinese viewer could be neglected entirely, and the movie is allowed to be shown.

    Reply
  15. GuruConnector
    Tuesday, September 7, 2010 at 7:51 pm

    i was watching a chinese movie the other day and i am not sure exactly why they even bother putting subtitles at all but it was a riot watch and read,,,they were watching and kind of guessing what they were saying and writing what they were doing like,,,he is arguing with this other man about something, they are shouting at each other,,he told him to get out of there etc etc

    Reply
  16. Nephets
    Wednesday, September 8, 2010 at 6:43 pm

    Totally cool…
    Are these the actual subtitles used for the film in China or just somebody showing how it can be done? Surely the movement of a page, for example, would make it really hard to do all the time.

    Reply
  17. Oblomov
    Monday, September 13, 2010 at 1:53 pm

    Such an excellent film. I hope many Chinese people see it.

    I have to wonder, though: where can this version be found?

    Reply
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