hankyoreh

” a film directed by Lu Chuan.

The obvious missing Asian film in this year’s Cannes lineup is Lu Chuan’s “City of Life and Death” about a Japanese soldier’s experience of the Nanjing Massacre. There are two screenings of the film in Cannes’ parallel film market. It also seems that the film will not be screening at the Venice Film Festival either since Venice demands world premieres, and the film has already opened in China and made over 10 million dollars within its first five days in theaters.

Like his mentor Jiang Wen’s “Devils on the Doorstep,” which also featured prominent Japanese roles, the film is shot in black-and-white so as to suggest an historically authentic look. The “City of Life and Death” has upset some Chinese critics as not being nationalistic enough, with one describing it as a Chinese film made by a Japanese director. Ironically, it might have been too nationalistic for the Cannes selection committee.

The presence of market screenings in Cannes suggest that the film does have English subtitles despite gossip on the Internet that as late as mid-April translators were collectively refusing to work on the film. The boycott is alleged to have come about because of the small sum of money offered by producers to subtitle the film, coupled with a tendency of mainland film companies to be slow at paying translators, if at all.　

The other blockbuster Chinese film release of 2009 is Ning Hao’s “Crazy Racer,” grossing over 15 million dollars on release. The film’s dialogue has been translated into English, and was simultaneously projected at its European festival premiere last month, but the film’s sales agent is unwilling to spend the couple of hundred dollars necessary to subtitle a used print. Therefore it will not screen to potential buyers at the Cannes market.

It may sound ludicrous that a film costing 10 million dollars, the official budget of Lu Chuan’s film, would try to save a few hundred dollars on a quality translator, but it is common throughout Asia. South Korean sales agencies are better than most when it comes to making English subtitles, but they are not averse to hiring second-rate translators at the last minute.

In the Japanese film industry, which has had an international market for decades, the art of subtitling a film is better respected. The bare minimum payment for subtitling a movie is about 2 thousand dollars. But a translator with a few years experience is typically paid 4 thousand dollars. A well-known subtitler, in demand by well-known directors, is paid considerably more. When one is paid in the thousands rather than the hundreds of dollars, subtitling can constitute a profession.

There is a downside to the Japanese film industry’s professional approach to subtitling. Not every Japanese film is subtitled. The number of Japanese films produced this year is expected to drop from 400 to 300 films, so even at 4 thousand dollars each, all of them could be subtitled for a total of 1.2 million dollars this year. This sum would represent a small fraction of the export-oriented Overseas Contents Development Fund whose budget will be announced in the Diet this autumn.

KOFIC does have a selective subtitling fund, but I think it is the wrong approach. If it wants South Korea to follow in the footsteps of Japan’s Oscar glory, it could influence the market price for quality subtitling, just as it influences a sustainable market price for quality 35mm film development through the operation of its basement laboratory. Otherwise, perhaps the underpaid translators of South Korean films should take a lesson from their colleagues in China.