Amusing Movie Titles Lost in Translation Quiz

Answer: Six Naked Pigs

In UK the term "the full Monty" was slang for "the whole thing" or "to go the whole way" and in the movie comedy it referred to six unemployed steel workers who stripped completely naked in order to earn money and find some meaning in their lives. The plot focused on the steel workers bonding as a team and coming to terms with issues such as unemployment, sexuality, suicide, self confidence, family and self respect. This was ultimately a "feel good" movie about what could be achieved by pulling together in the face of adversity.

In Hong Kong the movie title "The Full Monty" translated to Cantonese as "Six Stripped Warriors" but in Mandarin it was interpreted as "Six Naked Pigs". The stars must have been overjoyed to be known as naked pigs by over 20% of the world's population.

The movie won the Academy Award for Best Music Score and was nominated for four awards in total including Best Director, Best Picture and Best Screenplay. It also won the UK BAFTA for Best Film.

Total Film magazine in 2000 voted "The Full Monty" as the 49th greatest comedy of all time and in 2007 it was voted as the second greatest British comedy.

Answer: The Blair Witch Project

"The Blair Witch Project" was shot as a documentary about three student film makers who got lost in a forest whilst researching a local myth about witchcraft. The plot was seen through the lens of the students' camera to horrific effect, as one by one they disappeared. In the end all that was left was the camera and the film record. Much of the action took place out of shot to build up the tension.

Although a completely fictitious movie, there was a lot of pre-release publicity to suggest it related to actual events. This sparked tremendous interest, making it an extremely successful independent film.

The 2000 comedy spoof "The Bare Wench Project" was released in Taiwan under the name "Night in the Cramped Forest 2" causing some movie goers to believe it was a sequel. When the actual sequel, "Book of Shadows - Blair Witch 2" was released the Taiwanese distributors had to change the title to "Spirits of the Dead Roar".

Answer: As Good as It Gets

"As Good As It Gets" was a romantic comedy about an obsessive compulsive writer, a single mother waitress and a gay artist who were thrown together through circumstances. When the artist got beaten up and hospitalised the writer involuntarily ended up looking after his dog with the help of the waitress. The movie explored the social interactions and just how good life got through the relationships of the unlikely trio.

Presumably the Chinese title was a reference to Nicholson's cranky character.

The movie was nominated for seven Academy Awards winning both the Best Actor for Nicolson and Best Actress for Helen Hunt. It also won 23 other cinema awards including three Golden Globes.

Answer: Boogie Nights

The movie was about a young man's rise to stardom as an actor in the California porn movie industry of the 1970s and 80s. Dirk Diggler played by Mark Wahlberg was discovered by producer Jack Horner played by Burt Reynolds but his meteoric rise to stardom soon degenerated into arrogance and drug abuse in this dramatic tribute to the glam disco era.

"Boogie Nights" was nominated for three Academy Awards and was Reynolds' only Oscar nomination, for Best Supporting Actor. He didn't win but did get the Golden Globe in the same category.

Answer: The Cable Guy

"The Cable Guy" was a disturbing and dark comedy thriller about a cable TV engineer who stalked one of his customers. When the customer requested installing some free access channels, Carey's character used this as leverage to blackmail him into a friendship which spiralled into mayhem. It was one of Jim Carey's early movies and won him MTV awards for Best Comedic Performance and Best Villain.

Originally not well received by critics and movie goers "The Cable Guy" did eventually turn a sizeable profit and has received cult status.

There was no apparent logic behind the Chinese title translation until you appreciate that Jim Carey was known in East Asia as "Trump Card" as his first movies were the "Ace Ventura" series and Ace translated as "Trump Card". "Liar Liar" was translated as "Trump Card Big Liar".

Strangely the first "Austin Powers" movie was released in East Asia as "Trump Card Big Spy". It didn't star Jim Carey but as author, Nury Vittachi mentioned in his column in "The Standard" Hong Kong newspaper, "It starred Mike Myers rather than Jim Carrey, but distributors apparently thought that the fact that it was a completely different human being was too subtle a difference to worry about. Why be fussy? Deranged white guys are deranged white guys."

Answer: The English Patient

"The English Patient" was a romance drama set in a hospital in Italy at the close of WWII. Through a series of flash backs the identity of a badly burned pilot was slowly revealed which impacted on the other characters in the hospital.

The movie was nominated for eleven Academy Awards winning an incredible nine including best Picture and Best Director and also won 41 other movie awards.

"The English Patient" took its title from the 1992 Booker Prize novel but the Chinese title was certainly more alluring. A more direct translation to "The Sick Englishman" would almost certainly have flopped at the Chinese box offices.

The "Adam and Joe Show" on UK TV "Channel 4" ran a spoof called "The Toy Patient" using animated soft toys. Star, Ralph Fiennes liked it so much he contacted the show for a copy.

Answer: Enjoy Yourself in the Game of Love

"There's Something About Mary" was a romantic comedy about Ted, played by Ben Stiller chasing his childhood sweetheart, Mary, played by Cameron Diaz. Throughout the movie, Mary, without realising it, had a romantic impact on almost everyone she met, which created all sorts of rivalries for Ted to deal with. The movie was infamous for the hair gel scene which spawned numerous spoofs and product advertisements.

The movie was nominated for two Golden Globes and various sources rated it amongst the top US comedy movies of all time.

Actually all the answers were different countries' versions of the movie title. "There's Something About Mary" didn't translate very well in many languages so 20th Century Fox named the movie on a country by country basis. Some of these apparent titles were:
Poland: "For the Love of a Blonde"
France: "Mary at All Costs"
Thailand: "My True Love Will Stand All Outrageous Events"
Germany: "Crazy About Mary"
Brazil: "Who Stays With Mary?"
Spain: "Something Else Happened To Mary"

Answer: Blade Runner

The movie had nothing to do with silver wings, but then again it had nothing to do with blades or runners either so the English title was just as misleading. The producer had bought the rights to the title of an unrelated book about a man who smuggled surgical supplies and director, Ridley Scott though it would be a good title for the movie. The movie was based on another book by Philip K. Dick which also had a pretty strange title; "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?".

"Blade Runner" was set in a dystopic future Los Angeles and was actually about a retired police officer, Rick Deckard played by Harrison Ford, who was coerced into a last job of hunting down renegade bio-engineered human clones or "replicants".

The movie was in danger of running over budget and Scott was under pressure to cease filming. The finished product was then harshly edited and a voice over added to clarify the plot. The original cinema version confused audiences and the dark view of the future was not well received in the US. However, the movie did well internationally and became a cult sci-fi epic spawning a whole genre of tech noir movies. It won three UK BAFTAs and was regularly rated in listings as one of the top movies of all time.

There have been numerous versions of the movie released on DVD and some of these indicated that Deckard might himself have been a replicant.

The death monologue of Roy Batty and perhaps the most memorable line of the movie, "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched sea beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears ... in rain. Time to die." was apparently ad-libbed by actor Rutger Hauer.

Answer: The Professional (a.k.a. "Leon" in UK)

"Leon" was an action drama written and directed by French director Luc Besson. It was about a professional hit man who ended up looking after a 12 year old girl whose parents were killed by a corrupt police inspector. In trying to protect her he got drawn into a confrontation with the police SWAT team in a climatic ending. Gary Oldman played the bent cop and stole the movie with his over the top portrayal of the evil character.

The Chinese title was pretty apt given a 1994 review of the movie by "The New York Times" which stated, "He May Be a Killer, But He's Such a Sweetie".

"Bollywood" remade "The Professional" in 2000 as "Bichhoo" meaning "Scorpion".

Answer: Fargo

"Fargo" was a crime drama written, directed and produced by the Coen Brothers. It followed a plot by a financially challenged car dealer who hired two men to kidnap his wife in order to get his father in law to pay the ransom. The inept criminals bungled the plot and were tracked down by Marge Gunderson the pregnant local sheriff.

Although the movie started with a statement "Based on a True Story" and was commonly believed to be so, it was actually fictional.

Nominated for seven Academy Awards, "Fargo" won Best Actress and Best Screenplay as well as 52 other movie awards.

Most Hong Kong residents had never heard of the town of "Fargo" but the direct translation of the Cantonese characters for "fah" and "go" was "Snowy Cream". Considering it was about a murder in snow bound Midwest US, it was not a bad translation.

Please note that this quiz was meant as a bit of fun and was not intended as derogatory to any nationality.

The movie title translations came from various sources including:
Column by Nury Vittachi in "The Standard" (Hong Kong newspaper), 11 March 2008.
http://www.geocities.com/smvgrey/Titlefun.html
http://www.cityu.edu.hk/lib/collect/mr/PZ4-A.htm
http://imdb.com

The Chinese movie title translations in this quiz should not be confused with the spoof title translations which appeared on the 1997 "The Top Five List" by Chris White and Ziff Davis at http://www.topfive.com. Their list was mistakenly printed as factual by "The New York Times" in 1998.