EDITORS PLEASE READ

by **pjshimmer** » Tue Jun 05, 2001 7:08 pm

Most Chinese characters from movie titles prior to 1982 are written from right to left. There's really no way to tell which way it starts from; The way I know is just a little sense. For instance, The Mighty One (1971), ID 9145, has the title written backwards, and the Mandarin should be "Tong Zi Gong". Since the person who added the BIG5 used the linked poster as resource-and the poster has title written backwards-it is totally understandable. But like I said before, I don't know of a way to distinguish the directions which characters are written if you're just reading the characters. I just know that Tong Zi Gong literally means "Young Kid Kung Fu", and Gong Zi Tong (backwards) would have never made sense in Chinese. Also, I have noticed that "Gong1" is primarily used for the Mandarin character for "Red." As far as I know, red in Mandarin is actually "hong2." But even if I am correct, it would take 100 people 100 days to change every GONG back to HONG.

by **mpongpun** » Tue Jun 05, 2001 11:15 pm

Yup, you are right. When I did it, I forgot to switch it. It's changed now. Silver Fox

by **STSH** » Fri Jun 15, 2001 10:52 am

Hey pj ! Perhaps you can help myself and Fox, and perhaps anyone else interested in this one. I'm at the stage where I'm just starting to be able to detect direction i.e. whether it's L-R or R-L. Of course, many posters/credits are written top to bottom, which makes it so much easier

The rule of thumb I use is pre and post 1980, and I've found it generally accurate. But I recently had cause to introduce some doubt. The guy who runs a Chinese cinema here in Sydney is a cantonese speaking HKer. This guy has eaten lived and breathed Asian film for over 20 years. Through his wife as interpreter, he stunned me by saying that the David Chiang film The Challenger was definitely made in 1982, not 1979 as the Db says (as well as several other internet sources). He went on to say that the L-R and R-L has political overtones (!), and depended more on the political leaning of the owners of the producers than where it was made or when !!! To illustrate, he said The Challenger was Taiwan financed but made in HK, which explains why the poster is written R-L, which explains why it is still R-L in 1982. I am prepared to believe that the pre/post 1980 thing may be due to 1978, as around that time Cantonese language took over from M'rin as the dominant language in HK film. So, my cinema guy as a source. Is he raving mad, or is he on to something ? I must give him some creedence, if only for being an experienced movie fan and an industry insider.

by **pjshimmer** » Sat Jun 16, 2001 3:36 am

Fortunately for me, I need not figure out the "political" aspect of the film makers. I can simply tell (usually) if the title is written R-L or vise versa. For the rest of you guys, the pre-1980 method always works. One other way for me to tell the title is reading the Chinese subtitles; if it runs from R-L then that's probably how the title is run also, unless the version is remastered or something. If you ever run into a situation like this where you aren't sure the way a title is written, just post a msg here and I'll do the best I can to figure it out. =)

by **STSH** » Sat Jun 16, 2001 11:55 am

Thanks. I'll most probably take you up on it. As you said, I generally look for something familiar, like names I know, to determine the direction. This method falls apart only when I get a situation where there is no familiarity.....

EDITORS PLEASE READ

EDITORS PLEASE READ

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Re: EDITORS PLEASE READ

he might be correct

Re: he might be correct

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