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50 Movie Titles That Got Lost In Translation

Simon Brew


Army Of Darkness is Captain Supermarket? Die Hard 3 becomes Die Hard: Mega Hard? And you don’t want to know what Boogie Nights turned up as…

Published on Nov 21, 2008

On their journey around the international film markets, films have a habit of changing names, as local distributors target the flicks at their audiences. Sometimes, however, as this list shows, a new title doesn’t always quite capture the meaning of the original when it’s translated back into English.

We’ve hunted round many corners of the Internet for this collection, and credited sources at the bottom. If you’ve got any more to add, do let us know. Meanwhile, we’ll start our tour in China, where they’ve got this little lot…

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CHINA

The Full Monty: Six Naked Pigs

The Blair Witch Project: Night In The Cramped Forest

As Good As It Gets: Mr Cat Poop

Boogie Nights: His Great Device Makes Him Famous (Genius. Just genius)

Leon: This Hit Man Is Not as Cold as He Thought

Fargo: Mysterious Murder in Snowy Cream

Austin Powers: Trump Card Big Liar

Deep Impact: Earth And Comet Collide

Knocked Up: One Night, Big Belly

Nixon: The Big Liar

Risky Business: Just Send Him To University Unqualified

Free Willy: A Very Powerful Whale Runs To Heaven

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GERMANY

Airplane: The Unbelievable Trip In A Wacky Aeroplane or The Incredible Journey In A Crazy Airplane (depending on which translation you believe)

K9: My Partner with the cold Snout

Dragnet : Floppy Coppers Don’t Bite, or Yellow Coppers Don’t Bite (again, depending on which translation you go with)

The Parent Trap: A Twin Seldom Comes Alone

Die Hard: Die Slowly

Die Hard With A Vengeance: Die Slowly, Now More Than Ever

Dodgeball : Full Of The Nuts

Girl, Interrupted: Cuckoo (Succinct and to the point…)

Annie Hall: The Urban Neurotic

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ISRAEL:

Knocked Up: The Date That Screwed Me

Superbad: Super Horny

The Naked Gun: The Gun Died Laughing

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ITALY:

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind: If You Leave Me, I Delete You

____________________

FRANCE:

Fried Green Tomatoes: The Secret Is In The Sauce

Dirty Harry: Inspector Harry

Home Alone: Mom, I Missed The Plane

The Matrix: The Young People Who Traverse Dimensions While Wearing Sunglasses

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SPAIN:

The Dark Knight: Night Of The Knight (we really like this one…)

____________________

PERU:

Knocked Up: Slightly Pregnant

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MEXICO:

Juno: Juno: Grow, Run and Stumble.

Snatch: Pigs And Diamonds

Thelma and Louise: An Unexpected End

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DENMARK:

Die Hard With A Vengeance: Die Hard: Mega Hard (That’s just awesome, to be fair)

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HONG KONG

American Pie : American Virgin Man

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ARGENTINA:

Grease: Vaseline

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PORTUGAL:

Lost In Translation: Meetings and Failures in Meetings

Die Hard: Skyscraper Attack

Die Hard 2: Airport Attack

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CZECH REPUBLIC

Bad Santa: Santa Is A Pervert

Hot Shots! : Warm Shots

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FINLAND

Big Momma’s House: The Cop In Drag

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JAPAN:

Army Of Darkness: Captain Supermarket (WTF?)

The Horse Whisperer: Held by Wind in Montana

Being John Malkovich : The Hole Of Malkovich

Mr Holland’s Opus: The Sunny Classroom

Jersey Girl: I Love My Dad The Best In The World

____________________

TAIWAIN:

Get Smart: Is The Spy Capable Or Not

--------------------

LATIN AMERICA:

Rain Man: When Brother’s Meet

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We’re indebted to, and recommend, the following articles:

www.azcentral.com/ent/movies/articles/2008/08/01/20080801movienames.html
http://cinemascopian.com/2008/03/13/how-do-you-say-lost-in-translation/
www.madmind.de//2007/11/20/stupid-german-movie-titles/
http://mrjam.typepad.com/diary/2008/03/dont-ask-who-i.html
http://jam.canoe.ca/Movies/2008/11/14/7414821-sun.html
http://bluffcharging.wordpress.com/2008/04/24/the-10-worst-translated-movie-titles/
http://www.myfoxwausau.com/myfox/pages/Entertainment/Detail?contentId=7121798&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=7.2.1
http://www.geocities.com/smvgrey/Titlefun.html

And if you’re looking for a good spoof of all of these, click here.

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Users Comments

Re: 50 Movie Titles That Got Lost In Translation
Posted By xtrmntr 1 November 21, 2008 09:58:50 AM

More from Japan (from memory): Butch Cassidy - Tomorrow, we face and shoot Runaway Bride - Pretty Bride Billy Elliot - Little Dancer (bit boring - sorry) Hollow Man - Invisible

Re: 50 Movie Titles That Got Lost In Translation
Posted By Killer7 1 November 21, 2008 10:19:26 AM

The Full Monty: Six Naked Pigs - sheer class. Great list.

Re: 50 Movie Titles That Got Lost In Translation
Posted By James-Clayton 1 November 21, 2008 10:28:58 AM

Great list! The Chinese titles are probably the best. I reckon that if distributors were to use explanatory titles like "The Young People Who Traverse Dimensions While Wearing Sunglasses" to keep it simple for audiences there'd be fewer box office flops.

Re: 50 Movie Titles That Got Lost In Translation
Posted By Devildaria 1 November 21, 2008 11:11:26 AM

Dear Den Of Geek, I love your tone, but this article is so full of shit: Fried Green tomatoes in France came out as Beignets De Tomates Vertes, whiwh means roughly... Fried Green Tomatoes! And for the Matrix, just as anywhere in Europe, it was just Matrix. The proof is on IMDB. I didn't check all the others, but you seem a very imaginative person, so i have a hard time believing the rest of the article. Check your sources better next time!

Re: 50 Movie Titles That Got Lost In Translation
Posted By Dierk 1 November 21, 2008 11:57:31 AM

A correct retranslation of the German title for Dodgeball is even better: A Kick in the Groin br More literally it becomes Head On Into the Balls [or Nuts]

Re: 50 Movie Titles That Got Lost In Translation
Posted By poeboy 1 November 21, 2008 03:09:26 PM

[b]Army Of Darkness: Captain Supermarket (WTF?)[/b] This actually does kind of make sense, considering that Ash is a superhero-y kind of guy who works at S-Mart, which could be considered a supermarket, I suppose.

Re: 50 Movie Titles That Got Lost In Translation
Posted By simonbrew 1 November 21, 2008 04:17:12 PM

Devildaria - I'll double check on those again, and make any necessary amends...

Re: 50 Movie Titles That Got Lost In Translation
Posted By Matt 1 November 21, 2008 04:28:16 PM

Loved the article. My favourite was 'Die Slowly, Now More Than Ever'. Would also suggest that any information culled from the 'IMDB' be treated with a certain amount of suspicion. It's not necessarily going to be accurate.

Re: 50 Movie Titles That Got Lost In Translation
Posted By Midnighter 1 November 22, 2008 12:00:19 PM

A quick check of Amazon.fr shows that The Matrix in France was indeed just Matrix, so while this article initially amused me I'd take most of it with a pinch of salt.

Re: 50 Movie Titles That Got Lost In Translation
Posted By idontbweaveit 1 November 23, 2008 01:37:02 AM

I want to see a triple feature of A Twin Seldom Comes Alone, Warm Shots and The Hole of Malkovich.

Re: 50 Movie Titles That Got Lost In Translation
Posted By deerstop 1 November 23, 2008 02:04:39 PM

Russia: There Will Be Blood -> Petroleum Hitch -> The pick up rules: Hitch's method Wanted -> Specially Dangerous Homeland Security -> My mom's new guy The Deer Hunter -> Dear Mr. Hunter Die Hard -> Tough Nut

Re: 50 Movie Titles That Got Lost In Translation
Posted By boxofrain 1 November 24, 2008 03:46:38 PM

Some movie titles from Israel (They're REALLY good at screwing up titles here) Bring It On: Cheek to Cheek Cheerleaders The Naked Gun: The Gun Dies Laughing Camouflage : The Detective Dies Laughing George of the Jungle : The Jungle Dies Laughing Wrongfully Accused: The Escapee Dies Laughing Going Greek: Dude, Where's The College? Honest : F**king Love Story She's The Man: She's Got

Re: 50 Movie Titles That Got Lost In Translation
Posted By boxofrain 1 November 24, 2008 03:47:16 PM

She's The Man : She's got Balls

Re: 50 Movie Titles That Got Lost In Translation
Posted By reverendjeffy 1 November 30, 2008 05:31:54 PM

I can attest to the Army of Darkness Japanese title being correct. There's a very cool photo of the japanese movie poster at /film where the title, written in Katakana, translates to "Kyaputen Suupoomaaketo" or "Captain Supermarket." Gee. Thanks, six years of Japanese.

Re: 50 Movie Titles That Got Lost In Translation
Posted By LeonardMaltinJr 1 February 10, 2009 02:56:27 AM

I remember Mike Meyers saying on a talk show that one country took Wayne's World and retitled it "Don't Count Them Out, But They Are Idiots Nonetheless."

Re: 50 Movie Titles That Got Lost In Translation
Posted By syrdax 1 May 26, 2009 01:32:34 PM

Well I just registered to correct at least the stuff wrote about movie titles in Spain and Argentina, because, of course, I born Argentinian and I'm living in Spain for about 5 years now. I don't know where you got the Dark Knight thing but the Spanish name is just that, Dark Knight (if we are talking about the Batman movie) and its translation as "subtitle". And of course, its translation it is in fact "El caballero oscuro" (Dark Knight in English). Although there are A LOT of other movie names that really get lost on translation like Dukes of Hazard movie being called "2 chalaos muy fumaos" something like "2 stupids very high on crack". This concept is applied for every movie like Dukes (Harold & Kumar, etc.) Odd enough, there are plenty of more bad translations on movie names here, but the one you just pick isn't one of them. Talking about lost in translation (I translate them from the Spanish name): Lost in translation > Lost in Tokio Saw > Cruel game Cindirella Man > The fighter Collateral > Wrong time and place Fast & Furious > Full throttle (actually in Spanish sounds even worse) Die Hard > Cristal jungle (ouch) The eternal sunshine of the spotless mind > Forget about me The Departed > Infiltrateds (well isn't that ovious? the movie is about infiltrated people?) First blood > Corned (someone "lock" in a corner?) Anyway, here, the people who put the titles must think that the movie HAVE to be called as a tag line or have to have the plot in a or few words. Sorry for my English as I'm latin ;)

Re: 50 Movie Titles That Got Lost In Translation
Posted By tacamaral 1 November 16, 2009 02:19:03 AM

Nice list - but many are wrong, unfortunately, as has already been pointed out. Anyway, some more mistakes: K-9 is the title: the rest is just a subtitle. "Rain Man", in Latin America, is "Rain Man". In Portugal, it's "Rain Man - A meeting of brothers" as a second title. It doesn't mean there aren't problems with translations - there are several! But many of these examples are just not true.
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Knocked Up. Or One Night, Big Belly. Or The Date That Screwed Me. Or Slightly Pregnant. You choose.

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