White Walker Texas Ranger Posted October 15, 2014 Share Posted October 15, 2014 My girlfriend loves to watch Korean dramas. Sometimes when I watch with her, I see some blatant overacting, usually exaggerated facial expressions, but mostly I thought the acting was better than in American soap operas. Then one of the them had a bit role for an American actor. He was terrible, not in a hammy, scenery chewing, just bad. The cadence of his speech didn't even approach natural sounding. That got me wondering: maybe the Korean actors are pretty bad too, and I just because body language and facial expressions are normalish, and I have no idea what the natural cadence or tones of the language are supposed to sound like. Alternatively, when actors are speaking Korean, my attention is more on the subtitles than facial expressions or their words. Maybe that's why so many American anime fans prefer fansubs, because they can't understand Japanese and therefore have no idea whether the voice actors are good or bad. It might also explain the popularity of mindless actions flicks in China. They might not understand English well enough to notice the bland acting. Have you had trouble identifying bad actors when their speaking foreign languages? Conversely, have you had trouble appreciating a truly great performance? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sj4iy Posted October 15, 2014 Share Posted October 15, 2014 Nope. I'm an American, but I studied Japanese for 5 years and lived there for over a year. I've watched British, American, Japanese, Korean and Mexican soap operas...and really, bad acting is just bad acting. Honestly, I can see bad acting BETTER when watching something in a language I don't understand, because you are more focused on body language that way. Korean and Mexican soap operas are the worst, though. One Korean soap opera that I watched, Winter Sonata (冬のソナタ), was dubbed in Japanese...and was absolutely terrible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRaUwxEwrHM However, part of the fun of watching them is that they are easy to laugh at. This one especially had everything: teenagers in love about to be separated, he changes his mind and decides to go back to her, but is 'killed' in a car wreck that gave him amnesia, and he shows back up wearing glasses but doesn't remember her, blah blah blah. Ends up with him going blind but them getting back together anyway. Even the music was terrible. But the worst, worst part of it all was the acting. And whether it was in Korean (which I don't speak) or Japanese (which I do), it was all bad. For even more fun, you should try watching a Korean soap opera dubbed in Mandarin and subtitled in Vietnamese XD (yeah, I hung out with weird people) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
White Walker Texas Ranger Posted October 15, 2014 Author Share Posted October 15, 2014 Nope. I'm an American, but I studied Japanese for 5 years and lived there for over a year. I've watched British, American, Japanese, Korean and Mexican soap operas...and really, bad acting is just bad acting. Honestly, I can see bad acting BETTER when watching something in a language I don't understand, because you are more focused on body language that way. Korean and Mexican soap operas are the worst, though. One Korean soap opera that I watched, Winter Sonata (冬のソナタ), was dubbed in Japanese...and was absolutely terrible:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRaUwxEwrHMHowever, part of the fun of watching them is that they are easy to laugh at. This one especially had everything: teenagers in love about to be separated, he changes his mind and decides to go back to her, but is 'killed' in a car wreck that gave him amnesia, and he shows back up wearing glasses but doesn't remember her, blah blah blah. Ends up with him going blind but them getting back together anyway. Even the music was terrible. But the worst, worst part of it all was the acting. And whether it was in Korean (which I don't speak) or Japanese (which I do), it was all bad.For even more fun, you should try watching a Korean soap opera dubbed in Mandarin and subtitled in Vietnamese XD (yeah, I hung out with weird people)Vietnamese dubs are the worst. I saw a Chinese period piece dubbed in Vietnamese, and it was just one bored sounding lady who didn't even bother to change voices to different characters. The worst was the that the original Chinese was still audible underneath. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polishgenius Posted October 15, 2014 Share Posted October 15, 2014 I find the theory that bad action flicks are popular in China because they don't understand English to be questionable at best, given the popularity of bad action films in the West too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cold Crashing Waves Posted October 15, 2014 Share Posted October 15, 2014 If it isn't Cowboy Bebop or Samurai Champloo I avoid dubs altogether. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stubby Posted October 15, 2014 Share Posted October 15, 2014 We (that is myself and Lady Stubby) are currently watching the excellent crime drama from Sweden/Denmark; The Bridge (no spoilers please). The acting is superb and we don't even notice the sub-titles after a while. We have never had a problem with watching subtitled stuff. We prefer it to dubbed stuff, which looks awful. I think bad acting is bad acting, no matter what language the actors are using. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sj4iy Posted October 15, 2014 Share Posted October 15, 2014 I would like to add that I prefer the English dub of "Howl's Moving Castle" to the Japanese...they simply did a better job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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