Bullet Train Movies

[Webskipper]

Today I received my copy of "The Bullet Train" movie on DVD, in excellent condition.

It's the original version and story line (1975) for the movie "Speed" with Sandra Bullock, except that instead of the Bus, the bomb threat is onboard a 0 Series Shinkansen, Hikari 109.

The 0 Series is easily recognized by the large blunt conical nose, round headlamps, and split Pilot's side windows.

This one is dubbed in English. Makes for great entertainment for Shinkansen fans.

[Martijn Meerts]

Dubbed? *shudder* .. I tried watching a dubbed Japanese movie once, turned it off after 5 minutes, and never tried again since .. I prefer subbed versions :)

[Webskipper]

Its subbed and dubbed.

Dubbed better than a Godzilla movie. The original ones kids.

[disturbman]

Dubbed version are already bad with European languages, with asian languages it's even worse since it's impossible to synchronize voices and lip movements. This is a classic arguments but for me there two other things:
- First, dubbing kills the sound of a movie or a serie. Just listen to the sound, it's different and usually you here it has been recorded in a small box. Every time I hear that, it makes me feel weird.
- Second, acting is not only about a physical performance, it's also about what an actor puts in his (or her) voice. The performance is one, it's just weird to have someone try to redo that by just reading a text...

That said, I know it's mostly a question of culture. I've been watching movies in their original versions since I was 15... I can't go back now, I just can't stand dubbed version.

The Bullet train is a fine movie, we had spoke about it in the "movie with trains" thread and I had done a review on my blog: http://backtothewurst.blogspot.com/2011/04/dont-take-too-much-speed.html

[cteno4]

sonny chiba movies are quite fun! not only was the bullet train movie plot lifted but his tuff guy character style was also lifted by many actors later! in some ways the really bad movies are actually quite fun with the dubbing as its done the worst and sort of does the science fiction theatre 3000 thing to them to push them to being to the humorous point! i do love the style of cigarette holding in the 50-70s japanese B movies, some are quite stylized and obviously a lot of thought went into this action as part of the overall scene shoot and acting! also i think very ritualized by class. ever notice most of the mid to low level thugs can only have a cigarette in their mouth if it hangs at a 45 degree downward angle? the top big boys can have it sticking straight out and do lots of flourishes with it as well. its funny when i watch some japanese animation once and a while i see a characters stance and small actions and some scene from an old b/w japanese movie flashes in my head and im sure the animator is having some fun here.

i too grew up with both a lot of dubbed stuff (we got a lot of japanese stuff in california in the 60s on tv and always dubbed) and also a lot of subtitled going to foreign movies (odd for the time). things like ultraman and godzilla movies were the standard for after school and weekends while playing with legos and building rocket ships so the dubbed ones were great as you didnt have to pay total attention to reading the subtitles...

cheers

jeff

[clem24]

The Hunted with Christopher Lambert has a scene on a 100 Series Shinkansen. It's fairly entertaining LOL.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/uYhHFO4fhS8" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/uYhHFO4fhS8</a>

[cteno4]

ninjas on a train = snakes on a plane!

jeff

[Webskipper]

Unlike the remake with a bus, a train has no place to go except the tracks. I liked the how they calculated time to avoid train collisions and trying to outthink the automatic safety measures like the inertia brakes.

[Mudkip Orange]

Dubbed... movies are awesome... because lips... necessitate pauses at... odd times. I... prefer the dubbed movies, for their... Shatnerian cadence.

[disturbman]

things like ultraman and godzilla movies were the standard for after school and weekends while playing with legos and building rocket ships so the dubbed ones were great as you didnt have to pay total attention to reading the subtitles...

That's the thing, after a while, you get completely used to read subtitles and your brain do this function more easily, almost automatically/naturally. It's only a question of training or habit. It might be harder at first but then it gets easier and easier. It's like everything else.

I remember once I saw a movie (a old Chinese Jackie Chan) with a double subtitling (one on the screen and another one, electronic, under it) and I was reading both from time to time and spotting the errors and approximations. The placing of the electronic was odd and made it harder to read at first because it was placed outside of the screen, under the image.

Also, even if I'm french, I see all my movies (when they are not in English) with English subtitles. Can't say it ever impaired my watching.

But OK, I've been watching subtitles movies for 15 years and I've been reading English books for at least 10.

That said there is some famous shows in France that are better in their dubbed version, like Starsky and Hutch because the adaptation took things a step forward and the "dubbers" had a real chemistry going on. It kind of became a whole new show once dubbed.

[clem24]

I personally hate dubbed movies and will avoid them at all costs. I used to watch a lot of dubbed Cantonese stuff as a kid (can't read, duh), but as a adult, subbed all the way! The only dubbed show that I actually enjoy is the original Japanese version Iron Chef and the Spike dubs of Takeshi's Castle, MXC. Those guys were actually quite funny and made tons of politically incorrect and off-color comments. I remember one guy landed on his balls and they said something "well he ain't gonna have a family" or something like that LOL.

[cteno4]

ahh one of my favorites, iron chef! yes the iron chef dubbers have their own personality mix that works so well. would be impossible to do subtitles on that show as well as the dialog would be super tough to fit in in the sprits it comes in and then over the food prep in the scene, you would have to back the subtitles to be able to read them then it would ruin the image too much! plus half the fun is the fun banter by the commentators that would really be lost in subtitles.

its such an art to doing the subtitles nicely. its actually rarely done well and with some real though to blending the color of the text well to read on the scene. then the color that works well to read usually (sort of a goldish orange) pisses off most directors as being too noticeable! ive been around this tree a couple of times...

jeff

[spacecadet]

ahh one of my favorites, iron chef! yes the iron chef dubbers have their own personality mix that works so well. would be impossible to do subtitles on that show as well as the dialog would be super tough to fit in in the sprits it comes in and then over the food prep in the scene, you would have to back the subtitles to be able to read them then it would ruin the image too much! plus half the fun is the fun banter by the commentators that would really be lost in subtitles.

The Iron Chef dub was actually done by Fuji TV, in Japan, before export.  So that's one difference.  They also made basically no attempt at staying faithful to the original dialogue, which they could get away with because a) it's just a cooking TV show (although I do remember, when it was first shown here, a lot of Americans thought it was real!), and b) the dub was created by the original producers.  That made it impossible to argue that it wasn't what the creators wanted.  But even if you did want to argue for a faithful dub, you'd come off looking like some kind of weirdo arguing for the "artistic integrity" of a live cooking show.

It's harder to do it with a film because films *are* creative works (even if you don't consider them "art", they still tell a story and any film's creators chose his cast because he or she thought they were the right actors to tell that story).  Though I think there probably are some films like Iron Chef where they were actually dubbed in Japan, and in those cases it would still be hard to argue that the dub isn't what the director intended.

Still, I can't watch dubbed films, I mean I actively avoid them.  I change the channel if it's a film on TV, I used to stop streams on Netflix if it turned out a film was dubbed, and I've returned a VHS tape or two (back when I used to rent VHS tapes) without watching them.  In addition to the concerns above, I just find them really distracting and I can't get into a movie that's dubbed.  I can never forget that I'm listening to somebody just read lines in a recording studio rather than actually playing a character.

[keitaro]

Its subbed and dubbed.

Dubbed better than a Godzilla movie. The original ones kids.

here here i only watch subs the worst is ghibli movie dubs .... omg kill kill kill stupid voice actor

[linkey]

The Hunted with Christopher Lambert has a scene on a 100 Series Shinkansen. It's fairly entertaining LOL.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/uYhHFO4fhS8" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/uYhHFO4fhS8</a>

It was this movie that got me interested in wanting to learn how to play the Taiko Drums, and to see the shinkansen scene.