I noticed that THE PATRIOTS

http://hkmdb.com/db/movies/image_detail ... ay_set=eng

was not yet in the database by last weekend.

So I asked Michael to do an entry. Especially as I had some
images I could provide for the gallery.

Now someone added two well-known people as directors
but I doubt that they did really direct.

Their original function in Chinese is given in the pressbook
as ????

http://hkmdb.com/db/movies/image_detail ... ay_set=eng

whereas the director and screenplay person has in Chinese ??
which is a common abbreviation for ???? "screenplay AND directing".

It now looks like the two equally directed together with the actual
director – which I find misleading and not the best guess.
So I plead to delete this.

If they did an equal directing job, all three would have named together
with the third director in my opinion. I assume their function was just "planning"
and the directing characters were just a plus-expression in Chinese,
not meaning directing itself. So I would let them be with just with the "planning"
which will more likely correnspond to their real function back then.

I will add the original poster within the next days.

???? means "planning director", which I think is the person who does the planning of the movie and directs the film it in the pre-production stage.
In these cases, the credited director is only an executive director. But in the first 70s did not exist the role of "executive director", so he appears as "director".
In all the internet sites I have seen, the "planning director" is considered co-director of the movie (usually they are veteran film directors).

Also in this specific case, I think the name of the director is a pseudonym.

Yes, good point Oliver. This one is pretty clear cut. ???? exists in the advanced job list and should be used.

I have updated this entry. And perhaps I will change how all "directors" are displayed on the top of the movie page to make it more inclusive in cases like this where (as calros points out) these could be considered co-directors. Nonetheless, the credit is the credit as depicted on the poster.

Just FYI - I want editors to make an attempt to check the job list to make sure the most specific Chinese credit is used when it is available. I realize it's not an easy job, and credit simplifications will be made. It's OK. Use best effort and best judgement.

I have now made available to every editor an additional advanced crew page called "Crew (Job ID)". On this page you can see a three-column alphabetical list of English jobs. This may help when searching for a specific Chinese credit.