# Dubbed or Subtitles?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dubbed-or-subtitles/370982>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [August 31, 2006, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dubbed-or-subtitles/370982 "2006-08-31T20:41:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\
**Post date:** [September 1, 2006, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dubbed-or-subtitles/370982/41 "2006-09-01T19:41:06Z")

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Subtitles. I’ve only seen one movie where the dubbing didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the film…but I umm, can’t remember the name of it.

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**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\
**Post date:** [September 1, 2006, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dubbed-or-subtitles/370982/42 "2006-09-01T21:10:16Z")

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[QUOTE=Hampshire]  
I’ll go with subtitles.  
Examples:

**Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon**. The Cantonese they speak is such a beautiful language that it sounds very poetic and complex and the subtitles just give you a hint of what they are saying.  
When I watched it dubbed it just felt very dumbed down.

**Kung-Fu Hustle**. Watching the characters deliver their lines and reading the interpretations just added to the comedy. When I watched it dubbed it just wasn’t as funny.  
.  
[/QUOTE]

Nitpick, CTHD was in Mandarin. But I know exactly what you mean, and love a lot of kung fu and anime. There is very occaisionally a quality dub that happens, it is nice but very rare. I’ve been watching the anime **Chobits** on YouTube, and am very surprised at how good and well-performed the English dub is.

Many of Michelle Yeoh’s movies, including CTHD, she did the additional English overdub herself. So watching the dub you don’t miss out on her wonderfully beautiful voice 😉 Jackie Chan has also started doing the English dubs of his HK movies also, but his command of English isn’t strong or fluent enough to really deliver the emotion as convincingly.

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