The Naked Critic

May 30, 2004

Lost In Translation

As many of you know, I also contribute to a humour site/list called TopFive.com. If you're not familiar with it, it's more or less Top Ten lists. The site's been going, entertaining cubicle drones for ten years now. For about 3 years, I've been lucky enough to be a part of the fun.

It works like this: Chris (the grand poo-bah) sends out topics, and between the lot of us, we try to come up with the funniest entires possible. It's a lot of fun, and we have a blast doing it.

(This is going somewhere...don't worry)

Several years ago, there was a list called "Chinese Translations of English Movie Titles". This was because, well, Chinese titles are often hysterical. Real life case in point, "Boogie Nights" became "His Powerful Device Makes Him Famous". And "Nixon" became "The Big Liar"

So, the Top Fivers had a blast with it. "Pretty Woman" became "I Will Marry A Prostitute To Save Money". "Babe" became "The Happy Dumpling-to-be Who Talks And Solves Agricultural Problems." The entire list can be found HERE.

It was all good fun...until people started reporting the list as FACT. And we're not talking rinky-dink publications like Weekly World News, The Hackensack Penny Saver, or the Toronto Sun. Nope...the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, ABC World News Tonight, CNN...the list goes on. You can read a full account of the mayhem HERE.

So, I just got a call for NEW entries for a new Chinese Titles list. And dammit, I can't stop. I'm limited to 3 entries, yet I've written 15 so far. So, I figured I'd post them ALL here, so at least they see the light of day...even if they're not funny.

Special thanks to Johnny Pinatauro for helping out with a couple of these.

THE NAKED CRITIC'S CHINESE TRANSLATIONS OF ENGLISH MOVIE TITLES