Credits: Brothers Five (1970)

[MrBooth]

http://hkmdb.com/db/movies/view.mhtml?id=5101&complete_credits=1&display_set=eng

[MrBooth]

Any votes for changing Tin Fung's primary name to Tien Feng by the way? He's had a long career and I honestly don't know whether he was transliterated from Cantonese or Mandarin more often, but at least Tien Feng is unique in the db, so it wouldn't bring up the 'who do you mean?' page every time I add a role name for him

(plus, Tien Feng just seems to suit him more to me)

Googlefight supports me!

[url]http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1="tin+fung"&word2="tien+feng"[/url]

[calros]

Tien Feng is now winning the contest.

But I prefer the classic system "if nobody stops me..." etc.

Added sound Wang Yung-Hua (appears wrongly as music composer), art dir., costumes, ed., and 1 actor more.

[MrBooth]

OK, if nobody stops me I will at some point in the future make Tien Feng the primary name of Tin Fung

[kenichiku]

Personally 'Tien Feng' is the way I'm used to seeing his name in English since childhood especially during the era of this title (if his filmography only consisted of 'Dragon Lord' or 'Sex & Zen' then 'Tin Fung' might be more appropriate) but...anyway I second Mr Booth's motion here (besides Mr Tien's a Northerner).

On that note some rambling thoughts: I've found the majority of editors at other English language directories (one I needn't mention) will tend to assimilate their efforts only thru their own cultural view-finder like by medium (video only) or more importantly cultural lens i.e. Cantonese only since HK is popularly known as whereby if you don't have Cantonese roots and you refer to these databases you might assume that everybody and every reel of celluloid coming out of Taiwan and the Mainland as well as HK to only be of 'Hong Kong' and of 'Cantonese' origin and that's far from being the truth. I understand this is how folks reflexively apply things i.e. with their personal knowledge base and own cultural imprint into representing the data along the way. I think it's a mistake if this practice runs rampant and goes unchecked especially if the aim is to make an online database accurate and accessible from an International perspective and more importantly as a service to the armchair Chinese linguist who relies on proper romanizations as their means to understanding the lingo. I think efforts should work to make any database more culturally objective and timeless. Short of getting a college degree on the subject, I think one way to achieve this is to first correctly identify the origin of the staff personality, the feature's primary dialect spoken upon original release and the era in which it was released. Not much of a problem here, but if you don't know ask, just don't assume. I've found the rapport here user-friendly for that.

Realize that before the late 70s, films by studios like Shaw Bros. Golden Harvest and Cathay, the default dialect WAS Mandarin even when they had a few Cantonese projects going on within their studios. Given that when editing, my own tendency is to objectively stay faithful with the roots of the production: by country, region, era: colonial (Yale-Wade-Giles)/post colonial (Yale-Pinyin-Canto systems*) and by the primary dialect the feature was acted in (native sync sound or native post-sync dubbed sound). So for this item: the film is a 1970 Shaw Bros, post-sync dubbed sound in Mandarin w/English subs = represent in Wade-Giles w/the film's credits & past publicity as evidence. I happen to know Mr Tien started out in the 50s-early 60s: his name has always been identified thru Wade-Giles until he started Indie productions in HK & Taiwan (where many didn't have studio standards armed w/any rules & an Oxford dictionary) so take a look at this title over at IMDB (incidentally I just initiated and filled it before the recent re-release) as opposed to some of the transliterations for say 'The Teahouse' (not initiated by me but edited title & selected staff), some will see that I've distinguished the entry favoring Cantonese since that film is quintessentially a Cantonese work. Now if I were doing 'House of Flying Daggers' it would be with pinyin & so on. I know, even the HKFA's catalog isn't as disciplined with this (but they're consistent) but hey, we have to strive for something ideal.

Right now old Taiwanese films aren't getting any respect over at IMDB so I'm correcting tons of country codes that should be 'Taiwan' that had been labelled 'Hong Kong' and 'Cantonese' because some folks didn't know better. I know there are sensitive political ramifications to all this and the urge is for those editors who have a command of one dialect over another tend to 'claim' Hong Kong cinema as their own thru 'their eyes only' but realize that historically HK cinema couldn't of thrived without their unique melting pot of many Chinese ethnicities & outside cultures (& yes dare I say under colonialism too) and if you have some Cantonese roots like I do to make this type of claim, please realize that the Cantonese have been and are still a minority even at some 67 million strong worldwide equal to only 5% of the total Chinese population where the use of Putonghui tops the use of English as a spoken language worldwide so within the Cantonese majority within the 7 million strong populace in our once fabled Hollywood East city-state, I feel accuracy is the key in representing that which came out of HK cinema properly, here and anywhere else. I realise that this is all a community effort so the results will not appear so apparent for existing entries but this has helped me establish some logic to the proceedings. Not only that, I see you guys are already doing exactly what is needed to promote accuracy and to efficiently eliminate all those double and triple entries for single personalities that tax the limits of your servers. I say g*d/d*g is in the details. I know all this stuff makes editing more of a b*tch but who are we doing this for anyway, just for ourselves?

(*) - Re: Cantonese, there are so many different ways of transliterating that I'm still trying to distinguish the difference between say Meyer-Wempe, Sidney Lau, Yale or Jyutping systems let alone some of the more homegrown (WTF) ways I've seen it done to make my head spin. Don't even get me started on how you kind folks down in Southeast Asia eg. Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, etc. romanticize your names...

[calros]

According to our Rules, we must use the most usual "credit in English" of the people, it does not matter if they are from the North or South.

If this actor appears 30 times as "Tien Feng" in the English credits and 25 as "Tin Fung" we must use "Tien Feng".

[kenichiku]

According to our Rules, we must use the most usual "credit in English" of the people,

Come to think of it, I didn't know what the rule was but I didn't mean to solely imply that usage shouldn't be the criteria since it's obvious that in this case, the way you folks will change this name IS acccording to the actor's common usage as far as I'm concerned but if your familiarity is based on being a film fan only as recent as the 90s, I guess you wouldn't know what the usage for that old-school name would of been especially if the personality died or is no longer in the business or something. Don't get me wrong, I don't have any problem with it either way HERE but like I said, if the rules aren't explicit enough, we are left with applying data utilizing our own cultural proclivities and some standardization is in order for me so thanks for that clarification.

it does not matter if they are from the North or South.

Well, yes and no. Yes being history and the incumbence of the familiar determines common usage so even if a famous name llike 'Chow Yun Fat' decided to only made movies in the Mainland, I don't expect to see his English romanization all of the sudden switched to become 'Jou Yunfa' on this database if that's what you mean. No being if you have some obscure bit-actor who did nothing but extras work for 35 years who's never been coined an English version of his/her name is what I'm more interested in. What's the rule on that here since it's 'the here and now' that is setting the precedence for this type of entry so wouldn't a person's background be a factor since this is a 'Hong Kong' based directory or would it be Cantonese usage by default no matter what the personality's background? I know sorry, my above ramblings were based on a more globalized perspective when referring to practices on that OTHER database.

Postscript: Not applicable here but for transliterated film titles, HKFA uses pinyin no matter what dialect the film used and I'm cool with dat over there and like I said, I've used my own logic over at the IMDB but what's the position if you started doing transliterated titles here?

[Brian Thibodeau]

No being if you have some obscure bit-actor who did nothing but extras work for 35 years who's never been coined an English version of his/her name is what I'm more interested in. What's the rule on that here since it's 'the here and now' that is setting the precedence for this type of entry so wouldn't a person's background be a factor since this is a 'Hong Kong' based directory or would it be Cantonese usage by default no matter what the personality's background?

I've noticed that entries like these are liable to change once a substantial filmography is compiled for such lesser-known performers. At least that way, I suppose one could see whether they were predominantly in 60's/70's mandarin movies, or predominantly in 80's/90's Cantonese movies, predomminantly in Hong Kong, or predominantly in Taiwan, etc. Would this force a simple "count" whereby, kind of as Calros suggests, the language category containing the most films might dictate the romanization of the name?

Right now old Taiwanese films aren't getting any respect over at IMDB so I'm correcting tons of country codes that should be 'Taiwan' that had been labelled 'Hong Kong' and 'Cantonese' because some folks didn't know better

One area of concern I have is the Taiwan/Singapore mix-ups, though there may be others. I recently found one, a film I uploaded stills and info for called BUHDDIST (proper spelling), which is completely filmed and set in Singapore, where the true life events took place, and in which at least a couple of characters make reference to the the place, but the film was listed here as Taiwan (since changed). There's another thread in "Additions and Modifications" concerning a made-for-tv film called SEA EAGLE, which Young Master believes is Singaporean, but Calros believes is from Taiwan. These are instances where even a small set of extraneous screen grabs from the movies featuring prominent locations or architecture or clothing styles or automobiles would come in handy in making a final ID.

but if your familiarity is based on being a film fan only as recent as the 90s

While I'm sure many folks here can date their initiation to Asian cinema to the early 1990's (save perhaps ultra-newbies who've been fans for maybe less than five years), with time, nearly everyone ends up looking further back, and many of us have to adjust our thinking about romanizations accordingly, as someone we knew from a few Cantonese films by one name, is slowly discovered to have a staggeringly higher amount of Mandarin language-films to their credit. But of the crew that's here now—a far more knowledgeable bunch than myself—I've yet to see anyone's cultural preconceptions (of what have you) run rampant over the voices of others.

There are probably a lot of questionable items plaguing some database entries, and surely a lot of them date from the formative years of this site, and the early-growth years after that where it seemed like too many unrestrained contributors were freestyling the inclusion of information without properly vetting some decisions in the forums. I'm not 100% certain, but I think that may have even had something to do with the massive relaunch a few years back, which wiped clean the membership and forced people to re-apply (correct me if I'm wrong, somebody!!!). The questionable stuff seems to happen a lot less now, and with folks like you around, it's good to know there's always more people looking to make sure this place becomes an ideal resource for the future.

[kenichiku]

The questionable stuff seems to happen a lot less now, and with folks like you around, it's good to know there's always more people looking to make sure this place becomes an ideal resource for the future.

Well I do rarely get involved with these types of issues here since I've found that overall you folks do operate within a higher etchelon of collective reliable knowledge and do have most bases covered. For myself, I tend to gravitate where the IQ levels are questionable and lacking in grey matter, where they REALLY need help and where I feel more needed I guess (because that other DB is a mess re: Asian films)

There's another thread in "Additions and Modifications" concerning a made-for-tv film called SEA EAGLE, which Young Master believes is Singaporean, but Calros believes is from Taiwan. These are instances where even a small set of extraneous screen grabs from the movies featuring prominent locations or architecture or clothing styles or automobiles would come in handy in making a final ID.

That being said, you got me curious in finding out about that title myself. Inquiring minds want to know. I'll post 2 cents there.

[Brian Thibodeau]

Actually, it looks like Young Master has already brought up the issue regarding the pedigree of SEA EAGLE.


http://hkmdb.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=46512


.

[calros]

When I say "most common" I am saying "most common credit in English" in a HK, PRC or Taiwanese movie since 1895 to 2007.

So for example, people who worked most in PRC movies will have their name in Mandarin romanization.



Credits in "simplified" or distribution companies called "TV productions" do not mean nothing.

Some movies filmed in co-production have different credits (and even some credited crew and cast) depending of their different releasing companies.

A movie can be re-released for TV by a TV company, which also can release before this movie in CD or DVD.

[MrBooth]

OK, Tin Fung is now primarily named Tien Feng!

:much rejoicing: