English Chinese Translation of Film Titles

On the English Chinese Translation of Film Titles

Being an English Chinese translator at Top Chinese Translator, I always feel interested in translation of film titles. After all, film translation makes my job funnier. Recently, with the ending of 85^th Oscar Academy Award (Simplified Chinese: 第85届奥斯卡金像奖), Ang Lee (Simplified Chinese: 李安) and the movie ‘Life of Pi’ (Simplified Chinese: 少年派的奇幻漂流) got popular again. Lee has even beat out his most formidable competitor Steven Spielberg (Simplified Chinese: 史蒂文·斯皮尔伯格), the director of ‘Lincoln’ (Simplified Chinese: 林肯).

To most movie fans, all the nominated films are great ones, especially the Oscar-winners. It is a great opportunity to review the films when the Oscar Academy Award has just ended. In addition to the movie content, the title of a film is also a key factor which attracts attention. As an international communication platform, the Oscar Academy Award is open for films from all countries with different languages. Thus, all the foreign movies need to get different local names when they are shown in other countries or areas. It would be interesting to see different translated movie titles because of cultural differences, let alone I am one of the English Chinese translators. It is funny to talk about this with my colleagues at Top Chinese Translator.

Speaking of the English Chinese translation of film titles, we may have to figure out not only one translation of each due to the different forms of the Chinese language used in different places, such as the simplified Chinese in mainland China and the traditional Chinese used in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Hence, the different local translations of the same film title are the result of different concepts and purposes in different places. Let’s see some examples here. We welcome all suggestions and corrections from English Chinese translators.

English Name	Mainland China	Hong Kong	Taiwan
Argo	逃离德黑兰	救參任務	亞果出任務
The Artist	艺术家	星光夢裡人	大藝術家
The King’s Speech	国王的演讲	皇上無話兒	王者之聲：宣戰時刻
The Hurt Locker	拆弹部队	拆彈雄心	危機倒數
Slumdog Millionaire	贫民窟的百万富翁	一百萬零一夜	貧民百萬富翁
No Country for Old Men	老无所依	二百萬奪命奇案	險路勿近
The Departed	无间行者	無間道風雲	神鬼無間
Crash	撞车	撞車	衝擊效應
Million Dollar Baby	百万美元宝贝	擊情	登峰造極
Up	飞屋环游记	沖天救兵	天外奇跡
American Beauty	美国丽人	美麗有罪	美國心玫瑰情
Sound of Music	音乐之声	仙樂飄飄處處聞	真善美
Saving Private Ryan	拯救大兵瑞恩	雷霆救兵	搶救雷恩大兵
Star Trek	星际迷航	星空奇遇記	星際爭霸戰
The Terminator	终结者	未來戰士	魔鬼終結者

Even though the movie titles are short, they are still very rich in meaning. As in English Chinese translation, translators should try their best to re-create a right and concise local name. The Chinese name of the English movies should be based on the content and theme of the film. Yet the local name should be attractive to the local people. So the English Chinese translation of the movies should obey the customs and language style of the targeted country. That is to say, always take the cultural factors into consideration when translating the film names.

To discuss more on English Chinese translation of film titles, please feel free to contact us at Top Chinese Translator.