Okay. My first negative feedback re: #Shogun is they use English when speaking Portuguese, yet use Nihongo and Latin when speaking in Japanese and Latin.
No offence, but Western producers need to learn from Asian producers. It's 2024.
Okay. My first negative feedback re: #Shogun is they use English when speaking Portuguese, yet use Nihongo and Latin when speaking in Japanese and Latin.
No offence, but Western producers need to learn from Asian producers. It's 2024.
@CommonMugwort Yes.
A live-action adaptation is different from a novel. In a book medium, an author should of course write it in the language their target audience understands.
However, in a TV/film medium, we have subtitles. If the production was made in the 90s or earlier, it's understandable, since the tradition has been to use the audience's language. It's no longer the case for the past few years. The practice today is to use the actual language of communication… unless they have a universal translator like in Star Trek.
If one wants to listen to English instead of reading subtitles, then the OTT service, or the production, can provide an English “dub”.
Now, if it is an adaptation where the setting was changed, like Netflix's live-action adaptation of the Chinese novel #ThreeBody where they set it in North America, then obviously, it should be in American English, not Chinese.
But in the case of “Shõgun”, it was set in Japan's history where Portuguese was the primary foreign language.
If the argument is simply, because it was written in English, then Netflix's adaptation of Three-Body should be in Chinese. Or, because the audience wouldn't understand, then Shõgun should not have used Japanese at all (and the actors can speak English well).
I mean, no matter where we look at it, there is no reason why they did not use Portuguese.
@youronlyone you mean they should be using Portuguese for Portuguese? I get where you’re coming from, but I can see an argument for saying an adaptation of a novel written in English in which the English protagonist understands Portuguese and is fluent in it to the point where the book’s narration language and dialogue are both written in English can have English dialogue.
@CommonMugwort True. It would be a challenge for the actors, and time-consuming too, to learn to speak PT and know how to deliver the lines naturally. (It does look weird when an actor only memorised the words, often too mechanical and slow. Hehehe)
@youronlyone Thank you for the reply. In principle, I agree.
In practice…
I rather suspect the reasons are funding reasons. It would be extremely difficult for a US production with no English in it to find the money. Yes, that culture should be changed - it is changing, and the Shogun show is part of that change.
It would also be hard to find the actors, and not just the Portuguese-speakers. I don’t think it’s accidental 3 (at least - the ones I recognise) of the Japanese actors have US
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