A question about Chinese movies
silentnoise
March 01, 2009, 11:59 AM posted in General DiscussionI try to watch Chinese films regularly to learn more about the culture and expose myself to the language as it is spoken with different accents. As my ability to recongise the difference between Mandarin and Cantonese has improved, I've noticed that in some movies, they tend to mix the language together.
For example, last night I watched a film called 东邪西毒 where all the actors spoke Cantonese. However, for a significant part of the film, one of the female actors spoke in Mandarin. She had a full-scale conversation with others, they spoke in Cantonese, she replied in Mandarin. She asked questions in Mandarin, they replied in Cantonese.
I've also seen a few other films where I've noticed this happen as well. In some, they moved been Shanghaiese and Mandarin. Is there any particular reason why they make films in this way, or does it come down to the actors ability to speak a particular language?
Which leads me to ask another question - I recently attended Chinese New Year celebrations with a friend. The anchorman for the show spoke in Cantonese and Mandarin. My Chinese friend said that his Mandarin was terrible as he wasn't pronouncing the tones correctly. I assumed that a Cantonese speaker would be able to speak Mandarin quite fluently since Mandarin has only four tones whereas Cantonese has double that. Is this not the case?
silentnoise
March 02, 2009, 08:37 AMHi tvan thanks for the reply. It seems a little unnatural to me to hear them mix up the languages in this way, but as you say it could be common practice, even in everyday conversations.
It would seem strange for an English film to have one actor speak in Spanish throughout the dialogue if it had no relevance to the theme of the movie. But perhaps in Chinese, it may be a cultural thing and maybe I am incorrect for viewing Cantonese and Mandarin as distinct languages in the same way as English/Spanish.
silentnoise
March 09, 2009, 02:11 PMI watched the film "Clean" over the weekend. I quite liked it. Maggie Cheung spoke French and English very well. In this movie, I can understand the need to swtich between the two languages, but I am still at odds with the switching that goes on in the film 东邪西毒.
tvan
March 09, 2009, 07:10 PMsilentnoise, glad you enjoyed the movie. Of course, as you point out, the reason for switching languages was different than 东邪西毒 (i.e. they were switching countries). In the U.S. it's common to mix up Chinese and English, but that's usually when there isn't an easily translatable Chinese equivalent (e.g. Muni or BART) so, again, it doesn't directly apply to your question.
Does anybody in Shanghai commonly hear Shanghaiese and Mandarin mixed up? I think that's the original question.
8thstore
January 09, 2010, 02:30 PMyes i think it is common.i think in the film "东邪西毒”it aims to make the film funny andattract the audience.
tvan
March 01, 2009, 02:30 PMSilentnoise, Cantonese speakers used to have a terrible reputation for Mandarin. However, with Mandarin having been taught in Guangzhou for so long, it seems to me like the problem is mostly in the overseas communities and Hong Kong. I often hear Northerners complain about Hong Kong film stars' Mandarin (e.g. Michelle Yeoh), but I lack the skills to determine where real problems stop, and linguistic chauvinism starts.
On switching languages, my in-laws mix up Mandarin, Cantonese and Chaojiunese (潮州话）all the time. It seems pretty natural; however, that just my personal experience. Maybe some mainland Chinese on the site can offer more insight.