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Subtitles

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For some reason, dubbing tends to work when it's applied to Japanese and Korean anime. But it doesn't seem to work for live action movies. In the case of Japanese anime, dubbing is done much more carefully which is why it works. I have see dubbed and subtitled versions of several anime titles such as: Great Teacher Onizuka, Bleach, Fullmetal Alchemist, Naruto, and Dragonball Z. So far, I was impressed with the English dubbing but nothing can beat the authentic versions. At times, English-dubbing doesn't do any justice for the characters. I have seen plenty of martial arts movies that have been dubbed.

I have seen one dubbed movie with Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung many years ago when I was just a teenager. The movie was great; but, the dubbing was terrible. All the dubbing was done by English voice actors. Everybody sounded English in that movie. Jackie Chan sounded English in that movie. After that, I stopped caring for live action movies that happen to be dubbed. The only time dubbing would be necessary is if it were kids who can't read yet or do not know any of the advance vocabulary. I have cousins whom cannot read advanced English yet. That would mean when I pop in a Japanese anime, they wouldn't be able to understand the subtitles.

In the case of live action, it would be better to have English subtitles instead of dubbing. It's only right that foreign language films are left as they are. Only reason one would complain if s/he was too lazy to read the words. Keep in mind that it's much easier to dub animated works than live action works.

In short, hearing Jet Li with an Australian or English accent is not only fake; but, it's downright weird.

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