My Americanize Wife - ??

[j.crawford]

Came across this while scoring reviews.

Is this a correct title or did we drop something, like a "d" on the end of the middle word?

http://hkmdb.com/db/movies/view.mhtml?i ... ay_set=eng

Anyone?

[Mike Thomason]

Nah, that's the correct title!

Try to remember that, while you're going through things, some of the older films harboured grammatically inelegant English titles. So, though it looks incorrect to the eye, it is the actual title of the film.

A good example is Wong Jing's DANCES WITH DRAGON:

http://hkmdb.com/db/movies/view.mhtml?i ... ay_set=eng

Though we have the film in the database as "Dance With Dragon", the actual screen title is as below...



...and though it's a grammatically awkward title (in itself a play on words over Kevin Costner's "Dances With Wolves") it IS the title of the film. You'll find what appears to be grammatic errors on and off in older films (and sometimes even in new films too), but don't worry about it too much. That's the way it is and I think the database should reflect the films' English titles exactly as is, even if those same titles sometimes look awkward. Correcting English and grammar to suit ourselves isn't really reflective of the films' true and correct English accreditation.

[j.crawford]

Nah, that's the correct title! Wink

Try to remember that, while you're going through things, some of the older films harboured grammatically inelegant English titles. So, though it looks incorrect to the eye, it is the actual title of the film.

Yes, yes. I'm aware of the "grammatically inelegant" issues but are you sure about this one title? I'm having some memory issues as I get older.

No screen capture for this title? Anyone?

Re: Dances with Dragon - you can switch actual with alias title if you like.

[Mike Thomason]

I'm quite sure of the title. Here's some links that further confirm its title:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... 7?v=glance

http://www.cinemasie.com/en/fiche/oeuvr ... anizewife/

http://www.hkcinemagic.com/en/movie.asp?id=2113

http://www.lovehkfilm.com/people/yuen_james.htm (screenwriter credit)

http://translate.google.com/translate?h ... D%26sa%3DN (screenwriter credit, again)

http://translate.google.com/translate?h ... D%26sa%3DN (Carrie Ng biography, in Chinese)

The film played Chinese cinemas here (Australia) under the "Americanize" title, and I truly doubt that every single one of the above links would be incorrect (?). Why would a film be advertised/catalogued everywhere under the same title (it hardly seems the propagation of a common error)?

Here's the classification database entry from the British censorship board, the BBFC:

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/website/Classifie ... enDocument

The BBFC are sticklers for detail, and list all the details as supplied to them by the company submitting a film for classification. I doubt that Hong Kong based company TVB would have supplied the film under an incorrect English title back in 1994 (the entry dates back almost beyond this database and is a record of the information as submitted).

Hope this helps?
Mike

[j.crawford]

Mike, awesome work on that! Thanks for the back up.