Tora speaks English

[mark schilling]

Marcus says that he would "love to see Tora-san speaking English." Well, OK,
but probably not in the English-dubbed film I saw once at a festival in
Korea; the actor Shochiku had cast as Tora made him sound like Don Knotts on
bad Barney Fife day. Talk about the desecration of a national icon!

Mark Schilling
schill at gol.com





----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Nornes" <amnornes at umich.edu>
To: <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2002 1:04 AM
Subject: Re: J films on video w/ E subtitles


> Actually, I was referring to region encoding. But subtitles, when
> available, would be nice, too!
>
> In fact, they are available for an amazing number of films. I remember
> going to obscure popular films at the old theater in Little Tokyo. They
> were all subtitled, and were not films that got showings in festivals.
> It would seem subtitling was a matter course for some of the studios,
> for some of the time.
>
> As an aside, they did some dubbing, too. I met an American colonel on
> an Okinawan base a few weeks ago. Much to my surprise he told me about
> being a voice actor for the dubbing of Tora-san films way back when. So
> they were dubbing, too. I'd love to see Tora-san speaking English!
>
> Markus
>
>
> On Monday, September 16, 2002, at 12:00  PM, Boum Productions wrote:
>
> > There's been a discussion recently about this on another board, with
> > some
> > correspondants getting quite ridiculously worked up over the issue.
> > Remarks
> > about Japanese companies "not owing" the rest of the world subtitles
> > and
> > "why don't American producers sub their disks in Japanese" etc. Never
> > realised this was such an emotive issue.
> >
> > Anyone involved in selling marginal titles on disk these days knows
> > they're
> > going to sell a fair number overseas. It's what the internet was
> > invented
> > for! And if you add subs (and English is one of the widest spoken
> > languages)
> > you WILL increase your sales.
> >
> > I can understand it if the movie has been sold overseas. But many
> > (most?) of
> > the titles we're talking about will only receive a domestic release.
> >
> > Furthermore, making them more accessible might actually facilitate a
> > sale in
> > another territory. We sold some French 70's soft core titles on DVD to
> > a guy
> > in Japan, who happened to be a rep of a sales company. He liked them
> > so much
> > he contacted (through us) the film's copyright owners and bought the
> > Japanese rights. So it seems to be to everyone's advantage - or at
> > least to
> > the advantage of everyone who wants films to reach their widest
> > possible
> > audience. But maybe some people don't want this...?
> >
> >
> > Pete Tombs
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Mark Nornes" <amnornes at umich.edu>
> > To: <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
> > Sent: Monday, September 16, 2002 1:57 PM
> > Subject: Re: J films on video w/ E subtitles
> >
> >
> >>>
> >>> I'd be very happy to learn where online shoppers have been going. It
> >>> would be helpful if people adding to this thread can indicate whether
> >>> they have experienced any shipping territory limitations.
> >>
> >> I went on a little shopping spree this summer, and brought home a
> >> couple thousand dollars worth of disks for our library. I found
> >> Shibuya
> >> Tsutaya the best, with trips to Kinokuniya important for filling in
> >> the
> >> gaps. I suspect ordering online is the best, since you are not at the
> >> mercy of the store's stock.
> >>
> >> By the way, I used a credit card for these purchases and was hassled
> >> by
> >> the stores every time. They didn't want to sell me the disks because
> >> the card was issued in the States. Tsutaya relented easily. I had to
> >> slap the employees of Kinokuniya around a little before they even
> >> considered calling Visa to check out the card. If you are dropping a
> >> lot of cash, I think travellers checks are probably the way to go.
> >>
> >> Markus
> >>
> >> PS: Virtually all the good stuff is Region 2. I simply don't get it.
> >> Why are these companies shooting themselves in the feet? Virtually all
> >> of these titles have no hope of being picked up by foreign
> >> distributors, while it is becoming increasingly easy to purchase disks
> >> through the internet. Does anyone know what's going on?
> >>
> >>
> >>
>
>