Is this your real feeling on this, or is this internet arguing?
If it’s real, is there a time limit? If someone now were making a movie about Zeus and Hera, it should be in Latin? Or ancient Greek dialect?
I kinda hope you kidding. The American cinema would take quite a beating if every film inspired by something in a foreign language only used the native language and we had to use subtitles. Subtitles suck.
I don’t have a problem with subtitles but not having them is usually always better. That said, dubbs suck. Royally.
I think in the case of Mulan life-action, it is very easy to want to associate it with Chinese cinema…which it is not. I suppose this can apply to any film that that appears to overlap with a foreign film industry. Case in point also that Hollywood Geisha movie with Ken Watanabe.
It looks great, and its not as if there isn’t a colossal catalogue of beautifully filmed, big budget historical Chinese language films.
Anyway, odd argument, Enemy At The Gates in Russian, Cross of Iron in German and Defiance in Yiddish/Polish?
How would Americans feel if e.g. in an American revolutionary war historical drama, George Washington speaks German for a German production? If you think Mulan is ok in English, then you will have no cause to complain.
Hollywood productions of Roman/Greek drama may make it seems like e.g. Cleopatra speaking English (Liz Taylor speaking in a slight BBC accent to boot) is perfectly ok, but it is clearly a practical compromise, with a hint of cultural appropriation.
I like the approach made in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey: they hired actors with Greek heritage to do Kassandra/Alexio. With a Greek accent no less. No you can’t practically speak as they spoke in ancient Greek in a video game with thousands of lines, but the actors added authenticity to the performance.
What? I would feel nothing. Who would care? If a German movie company makes a movie primarily for the German market about ANYBODY, I would expect it to be in German. What the Hell kind of weird-ass objection is this?
ummm, fine?
Literally everyone who reads that:
Why would Germans being able to experience some US history in a way that’s accessible to them bother anyone?
If it is a German production and aimed at a German audience then why wouldn’t they have George speaking German? If it was a German production aimed at an American audience, then good luck with that.
So, should every movie be made like those old WW2 movies where the Germans spoke German, and all the good guys spoke English? Movies like The Longest Day and A Bridge Too Far. Battle of the Bulge just has Robert Show speaking with a “German” accent.
I’d think it makes perfect sense and I’d have no cause or desire to complain. And looking at this issue it from the perspective you just provided, it suddenly seems absurd that anybody ever would.
Also - Germans dub (or used to dub) everything. Absolutely everything. Berlin is known as “Dub City”.
I’ve never heard anyone complain seriously about that, other than that it’s doesn’t really work for Bogart say “Look into my eyes, babe” in Casablanca. Also, if you haven’t heard John Wayne say “Hände höch”, you’ve been deprived of part of the full John Wayne experience.
Edit: Also, if there’s been any movie released in the German market with George Washington, he’s spoken German in that. I only know of the German (unofficial) Hamilton mash-up, but it’s absolutely awesome.
And yes, an official translated version is heading to the German musical market.
I kind of like the concept of using accented english in general, but it isn’t always appropriate. The showrunners of Chernobyl said that they did early takes with Russian accents and that it ended up sounding too silly.
Aside from that, the main issue here, I think, is that within culture, accents do contain meaning. For AssCreed, they were lucky in that a Greek accent is probably relatively neutral in American culture. But other accents contain more meaning. In the US, a southern accent generally suggests that somebody is stupid, or at least provincial. Are there plenty of smart people with southern accents? Of course, but in addition to indicating place of origin, it also functions as a signifier to the audience.
It’s hard to know if a character has a southern accent because he’s from Georgia, or because the writer wants to message that he’s a country bumpkin, or wants to undermine your expectations by having him not be a country bumpkin. (And since it isn’t a real person: why did the writer choose to make this character from Georgia, instead of, say New York, or Denver, or anywhere else?).
A woman with a Chinese accent (especially a young woman) communicates something very different from an old man with a Chinese accent.
In addition, if they have different severity of accents, that’s also distracting, because you have to ask “is this saying something about Chinese character X that’s not true of Chinese character Y?” Now, most Americans without context in the Chinese community probably won’t even notice that the have different accents, so I’m okay with this being a “me” problem. But the broader problem of “does the base level accent communicate something about the characters” remains regardless.
Good luck. I get why they’re angry/disappointed but there is zero chance of a Chinese actor in a high-profile property coming out against the government. There is as much chance of Disney using an actor not approved by the Chinese authorities.
And Chinese unique. It doesn’t really matter what their high profile individuals believe; they know what they have to say in order to not forcefully disappear for awhile.
Ok, some slight changes. Overall seems to fairly closely match the original. However of all the ones to most closely mirror the animated films, this is the one where I am least bothered by it.
I’ll be there, looks like something I’ll enjoy.
I don’t see how it’s closely mirroring Disney, no MuShu, Li Shang, probably no cross dressing. I thought they might try to do a more realistic version but they added a ladyhawke and maybe a phoenix. It doesn’t look bad though.
There are hints. The ‘bring honor to this family’ hints at the song. The broad strokes seem to fit the Disney version exactly as well. I mean, sure, it is an adaptation of a real legend. There is certain points that they need to hit.
I suspect, based on hints, the secret woman is still in play. And come on, tell me this scene isn’t tailor made for a live shot
https://media3.giphy.com/media/S31kT3zpR4LNm/giphy.gif
Ok this one too
I mean, sure, it could be its own thing. But I suspect, aside from the female sorcerer/ girl talk stuff in the trailer that it will largely be the animated film minus Mushu. I am open to being wrong!