Journal of Chinese Cinemas

ISSN: 1750-8061 (Print) 1750-807X (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjcc20

Introduction: The translation and dissemination of

Chinese cinemas

Haina Jin

To cite this article: Haina Jin (2018) Introduction: The translation and dissemination of Chinese
cinemas, Journal of Chinese Cinemas, 12:3, 197-202, DOI: 10.1080/17508061.2018.1522805

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/17508061.2018.1522805

Published online: 09 Feb 2019.

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Journal of Chinese Cinemas
2018, VOL. 12, NO. 3, 197–202
https://doi.org/10.1080/17508061.2018.1522805

Introduction: The translation and dissemination of

Chinese cinemas
Haina Jin
School of Foreign Languages and Cultures, Communication University of China, Beijing, China

ABSTRACT
This introduction provides a brief historical overview of the translation of Chinese cinemas and
explores how film translation facilitates the dissemination of Chinese films. It also gives a descrip-
tion of the purpose, structure, and the methodologies of the contributing articles in this special
issue. Offering fresh visions and innovative studies on various important issues, including mis-
translation, the dubbing of Hong Kong kung fu films, the dubbing of foreign films in China, the
subtitling of Chinese dialect films, the subtitling of independent Chinese documentaries, and a
vivid personal account of the translation and distribution of Chinese cinemas in France, this special
issue aims to generate international dialogue by presenting diverse approaches to the translation
and dissemination of Chinese cinemas.

All films are foreign films. From the very beginnings of the medium, translation has con-
quered language and cultural barriers and facilitated the dissemination of films. As noted
by Tessa Dwyer, ‘the internationalism and supposed universalism of the silent era was in
fact underwritten by a vast array of translation practices’ (Dwyer 2005, 301). When film
was brought into China at the end of the nineteenth century, live interpretation was often
provided to help the Chinese audience to understand ‘Western shadow plays’ (Anonymous
1897). With the increasing number of foreign films showed in Shanghai, estimated around
450 in 1926 (Patterson 1927), exhibitors experimented with using subtitles to help the
Chinese audience to understand foreign films. Markus Nornes has examined a typical film
translation workflow: Hollywood studios would ship a list of titles to various distributors,
who would then translate the titles and send these ‘flash titles’ back to the studio (Nornes
2007, 97–98). In China, Peacock Film Company hired Cheng Shuren, who once studied
film in the United States, to experiment with subtitling foreign films in 1923. Cheng’s
method of projecting the Chinese translation onto an adjacent screen was successful and
adopted by cinemas in several different cities in China (Cheng 1927). In 1933, the film
examination committee of the Nationalist government issued a decree which required all
foreign films screened in China to show their respect for Chinese culture by providing
Chinese subtitles (Anonymous 1939). Since then, cinemas in China, especially in Shanghai,
have been equipped with projectors capable of exhibiting foreign films with Chinese sub-
titles. Cheng’s method continued to be used, and Hollywood film companies such as
Paramount began to add Chinese subtitles to films around 1936, a practice which continued
into the 1940s (Zhang 2006, 43–44).

CONTACT Haina Jin jinhaina@cuc.edu.cn

© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
198 H. JIN

Aside from subtitling, theatres also experimented with other translation methods for
foreign sound films. Shanghai Grand Theatre installed simultaneous interpretation devices
and hired ‘Miss Earphone’ – i.e., female interpreters – to provide simultaneous translation
service to film viewers in 1939 (Anonymous 1939). In 1942, the top cinemas in Shanghai
were all equipped with simultaneous interpretation devices. In 1947, apart from Shanghai,
similar devices were installed in cinemas in Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Wuxi (Zhang 2009,
305). American film companies, Soviet film companies, and Chinese individuals all also
experimented with dubbing for the Chinese market. MGM released Tarzan’s New York
Adventure (Richard Thorpe, 1942) with a Chinese dub (Guan 1946); Sovexportfilm dubbed
Zoya (Lev Arnshtam, 1944) (Khoo and Metzger 2009, 81); and Chinese individuals pro-
duced their own dubs of certain films (Shanghai Local History Office 2004).
However, it was not until the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in
1949 that dubbing became – and remained for decades – the predominant mode of trans-
lation for foreign films. In the 1950s, film was considered the most powerful art form and
a priority for state cultural and artistic policy (Zhou 1951). In order to reach a vast illiterate
population nationwide, four major state-owned film studios in China adopted the technique
of dubbing to translate foreign films, especially films from the Soviet bloc, for the masses.
Phrases from dubbed films became popular slang. Dubbed film served as a window to the
outside world for Chinese audiences during the Cold War period. After 1994, the govern-
ment allowed foreign films to be exhibited in Chinese cinemas on a revenue-sharing basis.
As the knowledge of English in Chinese society has increased, more and more audience
members, especially younger audience members, have come to prefer the subtitled version
of foreign films to the dubbed version, as they feel that the subtitled version allows them
to experience the original flavour of foreign films. In Chinese cinemas, both the subtitled
and dubbed versions of foreign films are often available. Since 2000, as the Internet has
expanded its reach in China, Chinese fans have becoming an important force for making
foreign films accessible to a Chinese audience. Although often criticized for legal issues and
ethical issues, fansub groups are beloved by Chinese audiences because of their speed (with
translations that seem to appear almost overnight), their unconventional translation meth-
ods, and for the otherwise unavailable content which they make accessible. Translated films
have changed the landscape of Chinese cinemas and have become a part of Chinese cinemas.
As for the translation of Chinese films, Laborer’s Love (Lagong zhi aiqing, a.k.a. Romance
of a Fruit Peddler; Zheng Zhengqiu, 1922), the earliest extant Chinese film, has bilingual
intertitles throughout the film, which shows the international ambitions of Chinese film-
makers from the very beginning of Chinese cinemas. Bilingual intertitles were inserted into
most extant Chinese films in the 1920s and the early 1930s. During the 1930s, in order to
promote the national language and prohibit the excessive use of foreign languages in China,
the Nationalist government repeatedly issued decrees forbidding the addition of English
intertitles to prints of Chinese films intended for domestic exhibition. After these decrees,
bilingual intertitles in Chinese films disappeared, and Chinese films were only translated
if they were exhibited overseas, as was the case with Song of China (Tian lun; Fei Mu, 1935),
which was shown in the US. After the establishment of the PRC, Chinese films were often
translated for diplomatic and cultural purposes. The former premier Zhou Enlai’s suggestion
to translate the title of Butterfly Lovers (Liang Shanbo yu Zhu Yingtai; Sang Hu and Huang
Sha, 1954) into Romeo and Juliet in China is a well-known diplomatic anecdote. Artists
 Journal of Chinese Cinemas 199

from Mali were invited to Beijing to dub White Haired Girl (Baimao nü; Wang Bin and Shui
Hua, 1950) and Daughter of the Party (Dang de nüer; Lin Nong, 1958) into Bambara in
1964 (Anonymous 1964). In the 1980s, when Chinese directors such as Chen Kaige and
Zhang Yimou strived to win international acclaim, they began to realize the importance of
quality film translation. International experts of Chinese studies such as Linda Jaivin, Sylvie
Gentil, and Chris Berry have been or were employed by Chinese directors to provide superb
subtitles to international audiences. Today, in a situation comparable to that of Chinese
films in the 1920s, even the prints of Chinese films screened in China have bilingual sub-
titles. Bilingual subtitles not only help the potential audience of over half a million foreign
nationals in China (National Bureau of Statistics 2010) to be able to watch Chinese films,
but also make it possible for Chinese cinemas to go global, which resonates the ambition
of Chinese filmmakers during the 1920s. Subtitling is the most popular mode of translation
for the commercial translation of Chinese films. It is used widely for exhibition both by
Chinese film companies and overseas media institutions. Dubbing also continues to be
used to translate Chinese films. The dubbing of Hong Kong kung fu films in the 1970s and
the dubbing of contemporary Chinese films as a national project since 2011 are two phe-
nomena worth our attention. The former helped Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest to
conquer the world market, especially the Anglophone market. The latter aims to promote
Chinese culture to a vast global audience, and in particular, to audiences in African countries
and countries that participate in the Belt and Road initiative. Since 2011, Chinese govern-
mental agencies have increased their efforts to promote Chinese film and television to
overseas markets through translation by initiating national audiovisual translation project
such as the China-Africa Film and Television Cooperation Project in 2012, the Contemporary
Works Translation Project in 2013 and the Silk Road Film and Television Bridge Project in
2014. As a result of these state-patronized projects, over 300 Chinese film and television
have been dubbed into over 20 languages including English, French, Portuguese, Swahili,
Hausa, Arabic, Spanish, and Hindi (Jin 2017, 33). Dubbing is used to reach and form a
connection with as vast an audience as possible. State-sponsored translation projects tend
to translate films which demonstrate mainstream Chinese values and reflect Chinese con-
temporary life. Other films are translated by Chinese film companies aiming for the inter-
national market, or by overseas companies which have purchased the films for distribution.
Overseas fans of Chinese films, either participants in individual fansub groups or contrib-
utors to platforms such as Viki, are another force in the translation of Chinese films. In the
context of globalization, these three groups drive the translation and dissemination of
Chinese cinemas.
A mistranslation is often criticized as a bad translation. However, Bérénice Reynaud
offers us a new way to look at mistranslation. Her article addresses this question of trans-
lation by examining the divergence between the English and Chinese titles of Feng Xiaogang’s
I Am Not Madame Bovary (Wo bu shi Pan Jinlian, 2016). Reynaud’s analysis draws on
multiple intertextual and intermedial references in Feng’s film, including the Jin Ping Mei,
Flaubert’s novel, and films by the Shaw brothers and Clara Lau. It borrows the concepts of
heterotopia, écart, montage and obliqueness from the work of French Sinologist François
Jullien, and incorporates François Cheng’s ethical considerations about a necessary dialogue
between Chinese and Western cultures. The article explores the idea of translation as res-
onance – a way of framing the difference inherent to the practice that also allows for an
200 H. JIN

exploration of this difference – and argues that the translation of the title becomes a portal
through which cross-cultural exchanges can be unceasingly repositioned and renegotiated.
It is an original contribution to the study of Feng Xiaogang, Pan Jinlian, Chinese film studies,
and comparative literature.
English-dubbed Hong Kong kung fu films have enjoyed great popularity in the interna-
tional market. However, the typical dubbing style, which mixes snarling delivery, vocabulary
drawn from the American vernacular, and erratically fractured phrasing, is often considered
bizarre. One example particularly beloved by fans reads, ‘Your kung-fu has…gotten real…
ly good’ (Bordwell 2000, 131). Aaron Han Joon Magnan-Park gives a very thorough and
interesting account of the dubbing of Hong Kong kung fu films that situates these practices
within a historical and cultural framework. Magnan-Park discusses the translators, dubbing
actors, and the process that led to imperfect dubbing, with postproduction dubbed dialogue
tracks that revealed noticeable lip lag. His article reveals the fascinating environment behind
the dubbing of Hong Kong kung fu films in the 1970s.
An important figure in bringing Chinese cinemas to France, Marie-Claire Kuo provides
a personal reminiscence of the translation and distribution of Chinese films in France. Her
account offers the field new information, alternative explanations, and different insights.
Oral history and personal memoirs can shed new light on the fields of film studies and
translation studies and present a fuller picture of the translation process.
Akiyama Tamako is a talented translator of Chinese films, especially Chinese indepen-
dent films. She gives a thought-provoking, inspired, and sensitive meditation on subtitle
translation. Limitations in space and time greatly constrain film translators. Akiyama argues
that the strictures of subtitling can also produce a certain kind of freedom. Using the sub-
titles for Fengming, a Chinese Memoir (He Fengming; Wang Bing 2007) to illustrate the
laboratory of possibilities hidden within the act of translation, Akiyama argues that ‘liberty’
designates a new relational model for translation. When responding to the invitation and
demand of the original, the agency of the translator and the audience may produce a trans-
lation which deviates from the literal meaning, but still achieves a different kind of fidelity,
a fidelity to something deeper and less tangible in the text. The author’s attentiveness to the
invisible and the unsaid provides fresh insights into the importance of silence and gaps to
spoken language.
Li Dang uses Jia Zhangke’s film The World (Shijie 2014) as a case study for the translation
of Chinese dialect films. Multilingualism is an important topic in Chinese film. The article
explores how dialects are used to represent a reality masked by a mainstream Putonghua
discourse and discusses how the dialects of Chinese film travel through audiovisual trans-
lation. Li analyses the multilingual elements of the original and the English-subtitled version.
She discusses translation strategies and their effect on character and plot development.
Du Weijia argues dubbing is fundamentally analogous to Schleiermacherian literal trans-
lation in that it requires bending domestic voices to match foreign lips and bodies. Chinese
dubbing practice, with its emphasis on synchrony or ‘matching voices’, produced voices
within the Chinese soundscape that were uniquely ‘foreignized’ and ‘embodied’. The dub-
bing actors distinguished themselves from mainstream voices by focusing on the body
instead of the messages and emotions they articulated; their voices were rare instances of
geno-voices amid the chorus of pheno-voices during the Maoist and post-Mao years. Her
article is a significant contribution to the research of the translation of foreign films
in China.
 Journal of Chinese Cinemas 201

Each contribution addresses the translation of Chinese cinemas from a different angle
and through a distinct object of inquiry. This special issue builds on previous research and
further expands the horizons of the subfield. The hope is that this intervention will suggest
new possibilities and territories for the study of the translation of Chinese cinemas.
Translated foreign films have become an integral part of Chinese cinemas and translated
Chinese films have in turn enriched the concept of world cinema. In many ways, this special
issue of the Journal of Chinese Cinemas on the translation and dissemination of Chinese
films is a timely publication in the context of the globalization of the film industry – as
Chinese films increasingly go global.

Acknowledgment
I would like to thank Professor Yomi Braester and Professor Bao Weihong for the great opportunity
to make this special issue on the translation and dissemination of Chinese cinemas possible. My
heartfelt gratitude also goes to the authors of this special issue for their great work and support. I am
deeply indebted to the peer-reviewers for their constructive suggestions and criticism. This article is
a partial fulfilment of ‘The National Social Science Fund of China’ (15CYY009).

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor
Dr Haina Jin is an associate professor in audiovisual translation at the Communication University
of China. Her research interests include audiovisual translation, translation history, and film history.
She is the principal investigator of two China National Social Science Foundation funded projects
on audiovisual translation. She has published a monograph entitled Towards a History of Translating
Chinese Films (1905–1949) and is now working on a sequel, which will cover the 110-year history of
translating Chinese films into foreign languages. She is a curator for a film translation exhibition at
the China Film Museum (to be held in 2020). She has been part of the organizing committee for the
Sino-Foreign Audiovisual Translation and Dubbing Cooperation Workshop for both the Beijing
Film Festival and the Shanghai Film Festival since 2015. She is also on the advisory board of the
Journal of Audiovisual Translation and the Language and Media Conference.

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