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Number of film 111 70 18 5 2 1 1487
Proportion 7.46% 4.71% 1.21% 0.34% 0.13% 0.07% 100%
The graph has clearly demonstrated that the Chinese translated version of film title mainly consists of three-character, four-character and five-character titles which together account for 79.5% of total translated titles.
(2) Commercial advertising value
Film, a work of art, at the same time is a type of commodity with commercial feature waiting to be bought by all the audience. Considering from this aspect, film titles are no longer only names for the films, they’re essential component of film production. A film title needs to fulfill its function as advertisement in the market. Therefore translators should never neglect the commercial advertising value.
1.2 The Status Quo of Film Title Translation
With the pace of globalization, Chinese film fans are getting more and more access to enjoy foreign films whether in the cinemas or via the Internet. In spite of the fascinating acting and picturesque film scene or attractive story, a profound film title with meaningful aftertaste can particularly arouse the people’s desire to go to the cinema to enjoy the film or get to know it from other ways.
One good film title is like the eye of the film, and it works as a trademark which is very advertising. As a special literature form, it is meant to be concise and persuasive. The translation should not only be loyal to the original title, but also emphasize on the effect that it makes onto the audience group. On one hand, translating is a process of language transformation. On the other hand, it is obviously a commercial behavior. So inevitably it will seek for the more commercial benefit and promote every potential audience to pay.
As China is gaining its openness towards the whole world, brilliant film titles spring up when the foreign films become an important part of Chinese people’s life. The excellent instances of classic film titles English-Chinese (E-C) translation are plentiful. But in recent years, not all translated titles are that good. Some of the titles are translated mechanically or even mistakenly. This sort of phenomenon will ruin the audience’s precious first-impression to the film. These not-so-well translations might have the following shortcomings.
(1) Blind pursuit for economic benefit.
As a form of modern commodity, film is propelled by profit on a large extent. So that, the translators tend to use some exaggerated words which are more exciting, mysterious, violent, and easy-understanding. On some occasions, the translator values too much of the commercial effect so that the translated title is only eye-catching but appears to be vulgar and can barely represent for the film, or even irrelevant to original title and the main plot of the film.
Example: The Shawshank Redemption
It was translated into《刺激1995》 in Hong Kong, which is a poor translated typical HK-style title. They often abuse exaggerated words like 凶, 魔鬼, 神, 迷 and so on. The excessive pursuit of visual excitement makes some HK editions ridiculous and irrelative with the films’ plot.
(2) Insufficient comprehension on film’s plot
As for film title translation, hasty translating can be treated as a taboo. Before doing translating the title, a translator must have in-depth understanding of the content and the main story of the whole film and also the connotation within.
Example: White Nights
This film that was adapted from Russian author Dostoevsky’s novel. Both novel and film were translated as 《白夜》. Actually, white night was a phrase stem from French which means a night without sleep. 《不眠之夜》can be a better rendering.