As one who is fluent in both English and Korean, and has done some work in translation and simultaneous interpreting, I very, very strongly recommend that you -- and anyone else who is even slightly interested in watching a foreign movie with its overall quality and artistic integrity intact -- watch this movie in the original Korean with English subtitles. Even with the inevitable shortcomings caused by translation problems and the practical necessity for brevity, I maintain Korean films (and foreign films in general) should be watched in the original, undubbed form. I have about 250 Korean movies in my DVD collection, many of which have English-dub audio tracks, and I have to say among them there is not a single one that can be described as good, or even adequate. They are all BAD. In many cases they are laughably bad. I will not speculate here on why Korean films (maybe Asian films in general, but I don't know) are so badly dubbed in English, but I think BAD gets the idea across.
Besides, why would you not want to hear the original actors' voices? Apart from the fact that vocal inflection is part of the acting, would you not want to hear what they sound like? Take an American or English actor with an interesting, distinctive voice -- James Mason or Clint Eastwood, for example -- and imagine them being dubbed over by some Asian voice actor who works primarily in dubbing Hannah-Barbera cartoons or Japanese giant monster movies. Does the vision of Captain Nemo or Dirty Harry sounding like an extra from a b-grade chop-socky martial arts movie from Hong Kong make you cringe? Well, that's kind of how it is for me every time I watch a Korean movie dubbed over in English.
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LovecraftLass
11 years ago
My mom and I tried to watch Ju-On with the English dubbing because she has a hard time seeing subs but the minute we heard it we just looked at each other and said "turn the subs on!"
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In Stranger Eons
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overseer-3
10 years ago
HAHAHA! So typical. Dubs are the PITS.
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amandadawnblock
9 years ago
I have to agree. I've watched Ju-on: The Grudge dubbed and subtitled, and I quickly realized the original audio is the best. I feel bad for the people who watch these films dubbed--they're missing out on a lot because so much of the acting and charm is in the voice inflections and tones, which the dubbed versions can never match. I just finished this film and I highly suggest you give the subtitles a chance. You're missing out if you don't.
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