When subtitles make no sense

With some subtitled movies, you hang on every image.

The other week I returned home to find my flatmate watching the DVD version of Nine, the rubbish Daniel Day-Lewis, Penélope Cruz romantic singfest. There was nothing particularly unusual about this; she doesn't have the greatest taste in televisual entertainment (apparently Gavin & Stacey is funnier than The Office). Only this DVD - borrowed from a friend, of course - had the film dubbed in Chinese with the English provided via somewhat questionable subtitles.

It was made all the more amusing by the fact that it seemed she had ignored the language problems and was engrossed in the action despite dubious lip-synching and appalling spelling mistakes. It was only when I pointed out the peculiarities of the situation that she noticed. Soon, it became clear that the subtitles bore little relation to what was going on and the dialogue she had been reading was seemingly made up of random words that sounded almost, but not quite, like the real script and had been bundled together by someone either not paying attention or without a basic grasp of English. This scene reminded me of the time I was in a café in Thailand watching a dodgy copy of The Lord of the Rings. Due to horrendous recording quality, this fake had been forced to include subtitles. But sadly, with the writer clearly not clued up on Tolkien, the central character was referred to throughout as 'Fred', with his sickly 'precious'-loving Baggins-hating pursuer given the less-than-frightening name of 'Colin'. Although Middle-earth's most diligent followers might not have approved of these minor adjustments, to myself and the other diners, they were brilliant. It was almost as though we were watching a completely new film, particularly towards the end with a weary Sam crying out for "Master Fred!" on the smoke-singed foothills of Mount Doom.

Then there's the packaging of these rip-offs, often so lovingly recreated from the originals but often so horribly, horribly incorrect. I fondly recall stumbling across a copy of Robert Rodriguez' classic 1996 zombie horror, which had been painstakingly designed to emulate the genuine DVD cover, with all the same fonts, but unfortunately using the title From Duck till Dawn.

To be honest, to those perhaps bored with excessively slick Hollywood productions, there's probably another market studios can capitalise on here. Alongside "Director's Cut" editions of DVDs, there should also be special "Dubious Subtitling" releases, featuring low-quality dubbing into a variety of languages and misspellings on the cover. The King's Peach? Harry Potter and the Deathly Pillows? Pilates of the Caribbean? The options are endless. Come on film industry, don't fight the fakes, join them.