Sunday, June 28, 2009

Transformer? ... Translator please !

Please don't get me wrong, I love the new Transformer movie. A 3 hours long movie that seemed too short indeed. In my opinion, it was well directed and action packed !! However, there is an apparent flaw in the movie that truly disappointed me, especially from a movie of this scale. The flaw I am talking about is the opening scene in Shanghai. Yeah, I think most of you who know Chinese know what I am about to say. The Chinese word of "POLICE" on the side of the police helicopter is in "traditional" Chinese (ie: 警察). O yes, a "traditional" Chinese word in the heart of mainland China where the official written language is "simplified" Chinese. That's not all, another flaw is that in mainland China, police is called 公安 and not 警察.

A multi-million dollars blockbuster and no one in the production team care to spot this flaw or care enough to correct it? I am no expert in computer graphics, but I believe the changes required to make sure correction is definitely easier than the scene where the Autobot is humping against Megan Fox's leg !!

Added 29 June 2009:

I have to apologize for the above post / entry. As informed, 警察 is the same in traditional and simplified Chinese. In addition, there exist both 警察 and 公安 in Mainland China. They both represent POLICE in the general sense, but in terms of differences, there are various interpretations:

(1) 警察 is a collective term used to describe the POLICE force which include 公安. In other words, 公安 is a sub-division of the POLICE (警察) forces that manly deals with civil matters within respective provincial boarders.

(2) Based on historical development, the newly introduced term 警察 is gradually being used to replace what is formerly known as 武警 which was formed or derived from part of the PLA (People's Liberation Army). In other words, 警察 in this context would handle mainly criminal related matters.(I guess to fight off Autobots, it is indeed a criminal matter!)

Confusing indeed ! One thing for sure, I was wrong in judging the validity of the terms used in the movie without doing much research myself. With that taken into consideration, two thumbs up for the movie ! (plus a valuable lesson about structure of Mainland China's POLICE force as well)


> Poster obtained from MoviePosterDB.com
> Copyright by respective production studio

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