by Allen Alberson

Created on: June 21, 2009   Last Updated: June 22, 2009

I am a big fan of foreign films, I guess I have been ever since I was a young boy watching Godzilla movies and Kung Fu theater. As a kid the option of subtitles never came up mostly because what you saw was all you got. Late night TV in the 80s didn't offer a option to caption the film and VHS was barely getting started. Don't even mention DVD with all its options and sub options and 30 different languages available. It's safe to say I grew up on dubbed films. Honestly I don't know what I remember more the actual action or the comedic dubbing in most of those. Making fun of the out of sync dialogue was common practice with me and my friends. I still love those old films and occasionally watch them today. On a lot of these movies there is still no subtitles available although each new re release shortens that list.

As I grew up my taste in movies varied and went through several changes. There was a period where I only watched cheap B movies and low budgets. Then I went through the big blockbuster phase. I still liked the same general type of movies horror, sci fi, comedies, and some martial arts, I just went through different phases of quality in those genres. Then a few years ago a movie opened in theaters by the name of "Hero" starring Jet Li. The commercials looked terrific so I went to see it. It was a Chinese film subtitled into English. Before this I had seen a few subtitled films but I had never really cared for them and when given the chance I switched to dubbing. Like many other people I had no patience to "read" a movie. "If I wanted to read I would buy a book." I was fond of saying. To my surprise the dubbing did not distract me or take away from my enjoyment, but rather enhanced it. No longer was I distracted by words not seeming to agree with the emotion expressed on the characters face or a voice not fitting the character. There was no out of sync silliness. I didn't feel like I missed anything at all.

Since then I have watched many foreign films. I always choose subtitles if they are available. Watching a dubbed film now really seems takes away from my enjoyment of the film. A lot of Italian films from the early 80's still are not subtitled into English and the dubbing is horrible. In the interest of being fair and to get the most enjoyment I have watched a few films both dubbed and subtitled and I was shocked at how much the dialogue differed. I don't know why there is a difference unless the writer of the dubbed dialogue is better trying to match

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