I mean, there does exist an officially released TMNT & Ghostbusters crossover comic book, so that's something. Not sure if it's a one-off or a whole series.
Raph has the sais, Mikey has the nunchucks, Leo has the katanas, Donny has his bo staff, and Casey is armed with his traditional Hoseiken Seiko weapon.
The turtles were dubbed in cantonese by the 4 members of Beyond, a legendary pop rock band in Hong Kong. Mikey saying ‘真的爱你’ (I really love you) to April on the TV is a reference to a popular song from the band.
I love how quintessentially "Kung-Fu Movie" the dialogue is in this version. Very little of this dialogue would be out of place in a Jackie Chan or Stephen Chow movie.
Wick: "You're majesty. I've created a spell that turns all the home media formats into VCDs." Dragonlord: "Brilliant. Then they'll have to use our streaming service DRAGONLORD +."
I am from Hong Kong and the guys who did the voice for the Turtles, especially in Turtles 2 was voiced by the 4 member boyband "Beyond" (sadly the lead singer died from an accident in 1993 so now they are only 3), they are still active to this day, singing. The Turtles and other character in the movie was voiced by different person than the cartoon version, in my opinion, the cartoon version had better voice artist, while the movie version was dubbed by personalities from Radio drama shows who really didn't suits the characters. Also interesting note which was not written in the translation but you have to hear what they say, The Chinese names for the Turtles are totally different than the one we hear. Instead of Italian painters, they are named after flowers. For Leonardo his name is basically Blue Angel, Raphael Red Bean, Michaelangelo is Orange and Donatello is Grape. Anyways the name in the translation might sound "Chinese" but the translator is basically translation their English name in Chinese sounding name and then when the translator write the text basically write it in Phonetic Sound... for Example April name in Chinese sounds like "Ai Pao" since we Cantonese don't have the "R" in the phonetic sound. This is why it looks weird in the text why April name is called "Pao" Anyways most of the stuff they dubbed in this TMNT movie use alot of jokes and pun in Cantonese which for none Cantonese will not understand (Cantonese is a dialect in South of China, around Guangzhou area, while Mandarin is the main dialect), even then not many outside of Guangzhou will understand Cantonese humour.
This is fascinating. I could tell the audio didn't match up with the subtitles a lot. It makes you wonder who wrote the English subtitles and what they were trying to get at. For example, Shredder's name is not spoken 'onitsuka' but it sounded like guai tong or something? Does that mean roughly the same thing? like 'demon hill' or whatever? and you're saying the turtles' food-themed color-coded names... sounded phonetically a bit like their original names? like 'red bean' sounds a little like raphael? or were they totally different, and the subtitle guy just added back misspelled original turtle names?
@@KairuHakubi well in the cartoon version, we do get their official names like Leonardo Raphael Mike etc in phonetic sounding name. But for some reason the name change only happen in this first TMNT movie. Also alot of the jokes is pretty Cantonese humour or popculture (Mainland has different humour than us from the south) that didn't translate well. I think alot of HK movies before 2000 had a translator who only take the translation literally sorta like Darth Vaders infamous "Do Not Want" (不要) in Chinese. Sorta like how Nintendo games has alot of Engrish.
@@hanchiman yeah that makes sense. That also leads to a lot of the "overly formal language" aspect because it's just explaining things plainly. Of course the turtles have regional accents and humor, so it's only appropriate their dub should too.
Seeing how different movies are dubbed really shows how hard dubbing can be. It's an art form in itself. Just a few word changes can completely change a scene.
Usually with at least the early US dubs it was entirely to change content and mostly to remove it. Elsewhere it just seems to rearrange things and try to make things fit up better culturally. This is pretty bad but at least it's hilarious.
@@VidelxSpopovich As much as people especially purists hate the term "localization" there are certain times when it's just essentially unavoidable. Cultural stuff including puns but also especially puns considering they're usually part of the language just do not translate well at all into english 99.9% of the time. The best you can do is approximate a similar phrase or pun of some kind in place of it. In manga they can just put a little asterisk off the page somewhere explaining the joke but here you're kind of stuck with either changing the joke entirely or again making it something equivalent to it but to a native english speaker.
One notorious dub is from a classic anime called Dominion Tank Police. In it, there is a scheme being orchestrated by an evil group to steal some biological matter from a hospital. In the English dub and to get it past our censors because "animation is for kids..." this is how a scene plays out. The police go to do some investigation at the hospital. The police chief; who is played as a complete over the top, emotional, easy to anger, and sometimes idiot starts to dip his finger into these vials of fluid. He tastes it and starts to blurt out a chemical formula. When one of the other officers asks the doctor what is in the vials, the doctor says, "Plasma." The chief, who sampled the "plasma," spits it out, blows his stack and screams out, "PLASMA?!" The doctor then tries to reassure him, "But, it is perfectly healthy plasma." In the actual non-censored dub, the liquid is actually urine. The reaction from the Chief of police is then a bit more understandable. He's still a moron for sticking his finger in a vial and tasting something he has no idea of what it is.
@@eduardopena5893 I'm not sure about that one it's been literally decades since I've seen that dub. That sounds right though considering it was one from the '80s and that's the kinda stuff that happened all the time.
I find the spelling of Jose Canseco to Hoseiken Seiko the most amusing. If you were a huge fan of American Baseball at the time regardless what part of the globe you were from you knew who he was and how to properly spell his name. The name change just makes him sound like he went from baseball player to fighting game final boss.
After his baseball career and his legal troubles mounted, Jose Canseco actually competed in charity fights where he would get in the ring and let anyone who paid the price hit him for a few rounds. So...he kinda was a fighter.
Man the Hong Kong DVD intro is... something. I'm already laughing at what feels like something a person would make in iMovie but then there's the picture of the Turtles they used and I'm losing it at Raph. Dude looks like he's high as hell but is trying desperately to act normal for this photoshoot.
This rabbit hole of different TMNT dubs seems to never end, uh. Soon enough, Phelous' gonna review dubs coming from space or something, with different alien languages. Klingon turtles, maybe?
The ninja panic of the late 80's is so preposterous. Even to this day there's certain states where it's illegal to own swords, but you can own a gun. -__-
Speaking of interesting international versions of the TMNT movies, there exist Persian dubs of all 3 original films and like a lot of other foreign media that makes it to Iran, it was produced without the original copyright holders' consent and has a lot of edits/censorship to accustom it for the region's audiences. Luckily you can find these dubs online quite easily, so if you plan on making yet another one of these video this could be of interest, the Persian title is: فیلم لاک پشت های نینجا 1 (1990).
So the Ghost Busters and the Kamen Riders live in the same universe as the Ninja Turtles really makes you wonder how The Foot never clashed with SHOCKER and it's variants I just hope the turtles don't become drooling idiots during their team ups.
11:08 movie is in Cantonese, calling a woman hooker is calling a chicken, and man is a duck and turtle was sometimes used as an insult as well. Mr. pao should be Mr. Bao, aka Mr. bun (bread) we don't have Damn in Cantonese, but what he said is closer to "how dare you" a stinky name or smelly name, is something we say where the family name is so bad that it will "smell" bad for generations.
Unless i'm mistaken, he said "Duck that doesnt look like a duck, tortoise that doesnt look like a tortoise" [correct translation] actually a common way to call a drawing ugly.
5:30 Chinese speaking April was talking about 2 of Hong Kong's popular singers at the time Leslie Cheung & Sam Hui but the song she was talking about was called "Silence is Golden" but the subtitles had it call "The Silent Crime wave'?
Between lines like "Run or you'll suffer", "Keep one alive to make him talk!" and "Hell with you!", the TMNT in this translation seem more passive-aggressive towards those they protect AND their enemies!
10:23 That's what's funny about subtitles: the subber doesn't always have access to the original scripts, so they may have to rely entirely on their ears to make out what's being said (which isn't always easy because dialogue can be incoherent at times), along with having to be familiar with cultural references. Hence the "Hoseiken Seiko" bat debacle. Legends of Localization showed off some Japanese subs of "Ghostbusters" and "The Wizard" (the latter titled "Sweet Road" over there) that further elaborates on how subs come with their own sets of obstacles to overcome. For one, they have character limitations, so lines often have to be cut down to the bare minimum to fit on the screen. And even lines get misheard from time to time.
I have definitely done that kind of thing before, mondegreening an unfamiliar celebrity name and thinking it was something else because I was just a kid who didn't know famous names yet...
I didn’t realize they referenced Jose Canseco in the TMNT movie, he keeps getting referenced in ninja related material, as one of the characters from Ninja Baseball Batman is based on Jose Canseco.
Michael: Donatell, aren't our shells wonderful? They're presentable and excellent for defense. Yes, but are they comfortable and easy to wear? I have to know!
I would _hope_ they'd be easy to wear, considering that they're literally part of their skeletal system, fused with their ribs and spine... If not, that's one miserable existence. Turtle Youngsters have it rough, man; no shorts for them.
I think some of these edits are a example of how certain countries shouldn't censor anyone's art, but other then that this review has tons of great effort weaved into our favorite turtle reviewer's love for ninja turtles.
I hope he finds other foreign-language versions of Ninja Turtles, because this was HILARIOUS. I thought nothing could top Japan's edit, but China really one-upped them.
Always fun to see you talk about TMNT stuff. By the way, If you're interested in a Dutch DVD release of TMNT 1990. Let me know, it doesn't have a Dutch dub. But it does have Dutch subtitles.
I love this film and I've loved finding out about all these different versions from your videos! I remember when the film first came out in the UK I watched the uncensored version first due to my dad managing to borrow a dodgy pirated VHS tape. When it finally got an official VHS release and I watched it again I was very confused - the clumsy edit for Shredder's 'death' stood out the most. I was so sure that Splinter flipped him over with the nunchucks - but I didn't know anyone else who had seen that version so couldn't get anyone to back me up! For years I was convinced there was this alternate ending - it's the closest I've ever been to experiencing the Mandela effect! It was only when scouring the internet as a teenager that I was finally vindicated!
Some Asian people actually choose an English name for themselves (the "Christian name" thing is probably the translators struggling to find similar term), but it' typically starts with the same letter as their original name, so I imagine that scene where Jones calls her "April" is just as nonsensical in the original language
I had a former coworker that called it her "western" name. She went by Heather. I don't remember how it was spelled (started with a Z), but I remember her saying it was pronounced somewhere along the lines of"jacque way".
This isn't a thing that is done in ALL of Asia. It is much more common for Chinese people to chose alternate western names than for Japanese people to do so. I've also heard "Christian name" used to mean first name or given name on British TV shows., but it's not a term I've ever heard anyone in America use.
21:15 "Ohhhh! You've melted the mirrorrrrr!" The heck? That's Professor Coldheart from the 1985 Care Bears series. What an utterly random piece of audio to insert there.
The covers are by a group called Grasshopper, 9.95 ruclips.net/video/Ydl4GUlJcD0/видео.html Turtle Power ruclips.net/video/wbKNqIAUxgE/видео.html And then a slightly different lyric version of 9.95: ruclips.net/video/LGVLb8FKdx4/видео.html which flow wise the lyrics sound better? It's crazy.
Well at least Germany didn't add any goat sound effects. That would've taken things TOO FAR. Mentioning the Ghostbusters going after regular crime waves makes me think of Vargskeletor's album. "The Ghostbusters are ill-equipped. They only brought ghostbusting weapons. But they should've brought A ShoTguN." I always enjoy your reviews, and me being such a simple mind, I got so giddy when you set up the I Hate Splinter. (No really, that was really well-telegraphed, just wanted to let you know I appreciate that.) My actual favorite part was the massive *REFERENCEALITY* of 17:53 though. 💜 (Credit where it's due too: Those songs kinda slap in Cantonese.)
There should be a Backstroke of the West style dub of this Chinese dub of TMNT where it's back in English and the characters are saying what's on the subtitles of this version instead of the original lines
I'd love to hear Robbie Rist or a soundalike of him say "Kick his buttocks with Ninja skills!" or a Josh Pais soundalike scream "Outrageous" into the sky
I once had an officially released Chinese hard sub Simpsons VCD compilation, but it wasn't dubbed. And at a local legit chain store, too. That's the only time I really saw legit VCD's in a store. I can't remember if they had a "used" label on them, even though it was factory sealed, but the store added a label saying the sale of VCD's was final, like you can't return it if it doesn't work.
It’s actually pretty common for the average Chinese person in China to just throw in some random English into a sentence as a way to make a joke or emphasise something. Also the changes in words could be due to not knowing or having a better translation. “Damn” turning to “Outrageous” being one of those instances. The turtle saying Damn kind of means outrageous in a way. This all doesn’t change the strange plot changes lol.
So much funny stuff here ,but for some reason, Cantonese language shredder telling the turtles in a full on 'kung fu movie bad guy ' voice that splinter "died tragically " cracked me up the most . Also, this dub gives splinter a 'wise old kung fu master' voice , I love it. Keep doing videos on alternate versions of movies phelous, they're great
The characters being given Asian names despite clearly being caucasian is just revenge for all the dubbed Asian films we did in the 60s/70s where we renamed obviously Asian people things like "Bob" and "Susie".
The TMNT movies were co-productions with Golden Harvest. Media Asia also released some of Wong Kar Wai’s earlier films As Tears Go By and Days of Being Wild.
27:30 The first two characters here are 鬼面, which means something like "mask of a devil" or "ghost mask". (I assume the last two are the "Jones" part, but I don't know.) The 鬼 character is the one used for the Japanese mythological creature, "Oni". 4:42 Maybe the "Masked Riders" are the Lone Ranger and Tonto, who's promptness was a display of Turtle Power. (The guys from that movie where Tonto wore a dead bird on his head were probably constantly telling people, "We'll be there in half an hour," though.) 28:05 The characters in the name Onitsuka, 鬼塚: The first is the aforementioned "Oni" character. The second character can be translated as burial mound. That's where the "spooky" part comes from. Sato is written as 佐藤. I'm not sure where they got these names from. Both "Onitsuka" and "Sato" are real Japanese surnames. The literal meaning of the characters in Sato are "assistant" and "wisteria".
@@KairuHakubi Yeah. The only "Chinese" I know are the characters I learned while studying Japanese (which I'm also not anywhere near fluent in) that both languages use in common, and how to look up what I don't know in a dictionary. So I can't understand most of the text or any of the dialog. When I looked up the "Onitsuka" characters in an online Chinese dictionary, the definition just said, "The Japanese name Onitsuka".
That Chinese DVD opening made me want to see an off broadway TMNT musical, ala the Beetlejuice or Evil Dead Musical, then you reminded me of the coming out of their shell tour and Getting down in your six flags…
As someone who's seen plenty of old Jackie Chan movies, it's quite surreal seeing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as it it were a Hong Kong action movie from the 80s (which is kinda appropriate since Golden Harvest was involved in the movie's production)
I’m pretty sure that Japanese version that removes all the references to Japan is probably a bootleg of the Korean or Chinese versions, Korea still had some laws against positive portrayal of Japan at the time. Why such a bootleg exists I can only speculate.
@@phelous Weird, I can't find any mention of this sort of thing being done for the cartoon. Maybe this was the English language release for American emigrants/English speakers living in both Japan and Korea, with the same audio track out of an abundance of caution. Doesn't make much sense, but then neither does that release.
@@phelous I think it’s a safe assumption that the print of the film Towa Video was given access for home video copy and distribution was a print made specifically for Korean localization and not Japan. It’s possible that it might have been the only print of the film available on short notice.
@@Vinny792 That's basically what my theory is. There is no other logical reason for them to have a clearly Korean edited version of the movie. Seems like either convenience or a mistake, at least until we get an official account of what happened. There otherwise is no logical reason they'd have a specifically altered version that removes references to Japan for the Japanese market. I guess Phelan would have to get a Korean release of the movie to know for sure.
The English subs are at decent for the most part. You can at least understand most of it. I've seen some where the subs don't even match what they said and the sentences are so broken you'll be lucky to understand half of what's going on.
That's the original Hong Kong Cantonese dub(way before China took over the country). The dub makes the whole movie feel more like an 80s HK action movie.
Had some memories of you randomly today and I was so happy to see you are still at it. Fan from 2009 checking back in, excited to see what content I have missed out on.
Next Mutation super series really settled in the inside bits for this channel lol, despite being done im still we’re keeping “__” is braindead, “I hate Splinter”, “A new way!”, “What a swinger!” and more not only just for super series but for reviews and even bootleg zones lol
Raphael and Casey act like the guys in The Princess Bride Once I dreamed that Splinter and Raphael were just in a church and Splinter was explaining about Heaven/Hell and Raph said that whichever one Splinter went to, he wanted to go too
Han Ai Pao would is a the Chinese way of saying April. Ai-pao =April. Han, I think, would be like the beginning of O'Neil (O'Ne?) but don't quote me on that. Another example would be Phelan becoming Fei Lan. Sorry, I taught English overseas and was taught that.
@@gracekim25 It was taught to me by my Chinese teacher at my university. Talk to them. I do know I messed up somewhere, hence me saying don't quote me.
The reason they keep dubbing out references to ninjas, ninjutsu, and (maybe) the idea of the "ninja" stuff being Japanese, may have to do with the fact that a lot of people in Japan see ninjas and ninjutsu as bad due to their historic association with assassination and dishonesty. They weren't bound by Bushido, so they could carry out the type of shit that samurai couldn't (officially) do in feudal Japanese politics and conflicts. Although you can also study ninjutsu in Japan as a graduate program (they accept very few applicants), so idk. Edit: a lot of ninja-related stuff was/is also censored in UK media, so it could have to do with that, or Japanese ninja censorship could have to do with UK censorship, or neither. I don't know why ninja stuff would be censored from UK TV/movies, other than just because it was considered too violent.
Shredder just being flung over by Splinter [ aka master rat] seems like something the original comic would have done. Ah such editing's from other regions.
Noticed that with this version of the film, they swapped some of the American references with local Hong Kong ones, such as April namedropping Leslie Cheung and Sam Hui (5:28) with karaoke and dreaming of Chow Yun Fat (15:00) despite the subtitles still saying Harrison Ford.
so basically... localization happened twice. Once into Hong Kong references, then the subtitler changed it BACK to American references.. but kind of biffed the names?
Aw, they tried; they spelled out Jose Canseco phonetically, and because in Japanese the first syllable in a word is _usually_ the one with a different inflection, they split the names wrong. Jose Canseco -> ho-se-i-ke-n-se-i-ko (what they heard aloud) -> hoseikenseiko -> Hoseiken Seiko
I'm with Chinese April on this one, we need a Kamen Rider and Ghostbuster crossover to put an end to crime.
Better yet? A Ghostbusters crossover with Kamen Rider Ghost
@@Vinny792 Yup, get those two; we'll be cool
@@Vinny792 yeah kill Takaru before he says his full name
@@Vinny792 ore wa tenkuji takaru
I mean, there does exist an officially released TMNT & Ghostbusters crossover comic book, so that's something. Not sure if it's a one-off or a whole series.
Raph has the sais, Mikey has the nunchucks, Leo has the katanas, Donny has his bo staff, and Casey is armed with his traditional Hoseiken Seiko weapon.
I think you mean Leonardo has "THE KATANA, OF COURSE!"
The turtles were dubbed in cantonese by the 4 members of Beyond, a legendary pop rock band in Hong Kong. Mikey saying ‘真的爱你’ (I really love you) to April on the TV is a reference to a popular song from the band.
Cool
I love how quintessentially "Kung-Fu Movie" the dialogue is in this version. Very little of this dialogue would be out of place in a Jackie Chan or Stephen Chow movie.
Wick: "You're majesty. I've created a spell that turns all the home media formats into VCDs."
Dragonlord: "Brilliant. Then they'll have to use our streaming service DRAGONLORD +."
That's waaaay too smart for them
your*
I am from Hong Kong and the guys who did the voice for the Turtles, especially in Turtles 2 was voiced by the 4 member boyband "Beyond" (sadly the lead singer died from an accident in 1993 so now they are only 3), they are still active to this day, singing. The Turtles and other character in the movie was voiced by different person than the cartoon version, in my opinion, the cartoon version had better voice artist, while the movie version was dubbed by personalities from Radio drama shows who really didn't suits the characters.
Also interesting note which was not written in the translation but you have to hear what they say, The Chinese names for the Turtles are totally different than the one we hear. Instead of Italian painters, they are named after flowers. For Leonardo his name is basically Blue Angel, Raphael Red Bean, Michaelangelo is Orange and Donatello is Grape.
Anyways the name in the translation might sound "Chinese" but the translator is basically translation their English name in Chinese sounding name and then when the translator write the text basically write it in Phonetic Sound... for Example April name in Chinese sounds like "Ai Pao" since we Cantonese don't have the "R" in the phonetic sound. This is why it looks weird in the text why April name is called "Pao"
Anyways most of the stuff they dubbed in this TMNT movie use alot of jokes and pun in Cantonese which for none Cantonese will not understand (Cantonese is a dialect in South of China, around Guangzhou area, while Mandarin is the main dialect), even then not many outside of Guangzhou will understand Cantonese humour.
Very interesting
okay, but what is "The Silent Crime Wave"?
This is fascinating. I could tell the audio didn't match up with the subtitles a lot. It makes you wonder who wrote the English subtitles and what they were trying to get at. For example, Shredder's name is not spoken 'onitsuka' but it sounded like guai tong or something? Does that mean roughly the same thing? like 'demon hill' or whatever?
and you're saying the turtles' food-themed color-coded names... sounded phonetically a bit like their original names? like 'red bean' sounds a little like raphael? or were they totally different, and the subtitle guy just added back misspelled original turtle names?
@@KairuHakubi well in the cartoon version, we do get their official names like Leonardo Raphael Mike etc in phonetic sounding name. But for some reason the name change only happen in this first TMNT movie. Also alot of the jokes is pretty Cantonese humour or popculture (Mainland has different humour than us from the south) that didn't translate well. I think alot of HK movies before 2000 had a translator who only take the translation literally sorta like Darth Vaders infamous "Do Not Want" (不要) in Chinese. Sorta like how Nintendo games has alot of Engrish.
@@hanchiman yeah that makes sense. That also leads to a lot of the "overly formal language" aspect because it's just explaining things plainly.
Of course the turtles have regional accents and humor, so it's only appropriate their dub should too.
‘Ai-pao’ might just be a literal rendition of the Chinese phonetic spelling of ‘April’.
Seeing how different movies are dubbed really shows how hard dubbing can be. It's an art form in itself. Just a few word changes can completely change a scene.
Usually with at least the early US dubs it was entirely to change content and mostly to remove it.
Elsewhere it just seems to rearrange things and try to make things fit up better culturally. This is pretty bad but at least it's hilarious.
I love listening to attempts by Dubbers to translate Japanese puns
@@VidelxSpopovich
As much as people especially purists hate the term "localization" there are certain times when it's just essentially unavoidable. Cultural stuff including puns but also especially puns considering they're usually part of the language just do not translate well at all into english 99.9% of the time. The best you can do is approximate a similar phrase or pun of some kind in place of it. In manga they can just put a little asterisk off the page somewhere explaining the joke but here you're kind of stuck with either changing the joke entirely or again making it something equivalent to it but to a native english speaker.
One notorious dub is from a classic anime called Dominion Tank Police. In it, there is a scheme being orchestrated by an evil group to steal some biological matter from a hospital. In the English dub and to get it past our censors because "animation is for kids..." this is how a scene plays out.
The police go to do some investigation at the hospital. The police chief; who is played as a complete over the top, emotional, easy to anger, and sometimes idiot starts to dip his finger into these vials of fluid. He tastes it and starts to blurt out a chemical formula. When one of the other officers asks the doctor what is in the vials, the doctor says, "Plasma."
The chief, who sampled the "plasma," spits it out, blows his stack and screams out, "PLASMA?!"
The doctor then tries to reassure him, "But, it is perfectly healthy plasma."
In the actual non-censored dub, the liquid is actually urine. The reaction from the Chief of police is then a bit more understandable. He's still a moron for sticking his finger in a vial and tasting something he has no idea of what it is.
@@eduardopena5893
I'm not sure about that one it's been literally decades since I've seen that dub. That sounds right though considering it was one from the '80s and that's the kinda stuff that happened all the time.
These videos on weird, obscure Turtles stuff are always a treat.
His videos on home media in general are always a treat.
Absolutely agreed. I love when one of these pop up in my YT feed. 👍🏻💚
“Hoseiken Seiko” are considered the Stradivarius of the baseball bats
What are the Les Paul's of baseball bats?
If someone made bats with that brand, I’d buy one in a heartbeat 😂
Wonderbat ain't got nothing on 'em!
Every time I think Phelan has talked about every possible TMNT edit, he manages to pull an even more obscure one from the ether.
We *HAVE TO* make The Hoseiken Seiko a special martial arts joke move Michelangelo does at some point...
I love the Rabbit hole that is Phelous' Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles home media format collection.
I love that Phelous has all these rabbit holes of weird obscure ripoffs
@AT Productions yes😂
@AT Productions Probably not?
If you want a truly batshit Chinese translation of a Hollywood movie, I recommend Star Wars: The Third Gathers: Backstroke of the West.
Dude, thanks for reminding me that exists! 🤣
I find the spelling of Jose Canseco to Hoseiken Seiko the most amusing. If you were a huge fan of American Baseball at the time regardless what part of the globe you were from you knew who he was and how to properly spell his name.
The name change just makes him sound like he went from baseball player to fighting game final boss.
i know nothing about baseball apart from what i saw in HSM2 and i can't stop laughing at the spelling mistake regardless
I think the Japanese would get the Jose Canseco reference
After his baseball career and his legal troubles mounted, Jose Canseco actually competed in charity fights where he would get in the ring and let anyone who paid the price hit him for a few rounds. So...he kinda was a fighter.
Hoseiken Seiko? Isn't that a finishing move from Fist of the North Star?
Hoseiken Seiko sounds like he could be the fictional Japanese counterpart to Jose Canseco.
Man the Hong Kong DVD intro is... something. I'm already laughing at what feels like something a person would make in iMovie but then there's the picture of the Turtles they used and I'm losing it at Raph. Dude looks like he's high as hell but is trying desperately to act normal for this photoshoot.
"uh oh spaghetti" is one of the best jokes I have ever heard
I had a spontaneous laughing fit over it and I totally did not expect it.
@@MWaser I probably replayed it 10 times
That UK edit of Shredder falling off the roof was hilarious, especially after thinking of all that build-up.
This rabbit hole of different TMNT dubs seems to never end, uh.
Soon enough, Phelous' gonna review dubs coming from space or something, with different alien languages.
Klingon turtles, maybe?
many years ago I lived on Qo'noS
😂
The ninja panic of the late 80's is so preposterous.
Even to this day there's certain states where it's illegal to own swords, but you can own a gun. -__-
It was illegal to own nunchaku in New York until just a couple of years ago.
Speaking of interesting international versions of the TMNT movies, there exist Persian dubs of all 3 original films and like a lot of other foreign media that makes it to Iran, it was produced without the original copyright holders' consent and has a lot of edits/censorship to accustom it for the region's audiences. Luckily you can find these dubs online quite easily, so if you plan on making yet another one of these video this could be of interest, the Persian title is: فیلم لاک پشت های نینجا 1 (1990).
I always ask the Ghostbusters to help when my wallet gets stolen.
They told me to stop calling.
you think that's funny now just wait until slimer steals your wallet
@@kronemerj EH! 😂
Now if you called the Extreme Ghostbusters... they'd still tell you to stop calling.
These deep dives are the stuff of kings, I tell ya! And I can confirm, Kamen Rider (or Masked Rider) is very popular in China, HK especially.
So the Ghost Busters and the Kamen Riders live in the same universe as the Ninja Turtles really makes you wonder how The Foot never clashed with SHOCKER and it's variants I just hope the turtles don't become drooling idiots during their team ups.
Next thing you know, Skyrider shows up, & shouts that "HE'S AMAZON!".
11:08
movie is in Cantonese,
calling a woman hooker is calling a chicken, and man is a duck
and turtle was sometimes used as an insult as well.
Mr. pao should be Mr. Bao, aka Mr. bun (bread)
we don't have Damn in Cantonese, but what he said is closer to "how dare you"
a stinky name or smelly name, is something we say where the family name is so bad that it will "smell" bad for generations.
Unless i'm mistaken, he said "Duck that doesnt look like a duck, tortoise that doesnt look like a tortoise" [correct translation] actually a common way to call a drawing ugly.
5:30 Chinese speaking April was talking about 2 of Hong Kong's popular singers at the time Leslie Cheung & Sam Hui but the song she was talking about was called "Silence is Golden" but the subtitles had it call "The Silent Crime wave'?
Between lines like "Run or you'll suffer", "Keep one alive to make him talk!" and "Hell with you!", the TMNT in this translation seem more passive-aggressive towards those they protect AND their enemies!
10:23 That's what's funny about subtitles: the subber doesn't always have access to the original scripts, so they may have to rely entirely on their ears to make out what's being said (which isn't always easy because dialogue can be incoherent at times), along with having to be familiar with cultural references. Hence the "Hoseiken Seiko" bat debacle.
Legends of Localization showed off some Japanese subs of "Ghostbusters" and "The Wizard" (the latter titled "Sweet Road" over there) that further elaborates on how subs come with their own sets of obstacles to overcome. For one, they have character limitations, so lines often have to be cut down to the bare minimum to fit on the screen. And even lines get misheard from time to time.
I have definitely done that kind of thing before, mondegreening an unfamiliar celebrity name and thinking it was something else because I was just a kid who didn't know famous names yet...
Wait a minute, wasn't Sato another name for Baltard? IT ALL COMES TOGETHER AGAIN
Galaxy Warriors is truly everywhere.
"Rob the treasury if you had the guts" Casey, what?? LOL.
15:30 nuclear fall out?!!!!! LOL WHAT???
I'm in tears at all of this, one of favorite videos of yours for sure.
16:10 Mikey: yeah all the good ones end in o!
@@JamieSwitzer The sewer was under Three Mile Island?
@@Tareltonlives i would guess so.
28:09 yes because the first kanji in his name means "oni" in Japanese but "ghost" in Chinese
Man the dialogue for this one is pretty dang funny especially with how formal it can be. Keep these different movie releases coming.
I didn’t realize they referenced Jose Canseco in the TMNT movie, he keeps getting referenced in ninja related material, as one of the characters from Ninja Baseball Batman is based on Jose Canseco.
29:24
Turtles: We are the ninja turtles, we always win!
Tien: WE'LL SEE ABOUT THAT! EEAAAGHH
The Chinese version almost like somebody coming up to you and wanting to sell you a Rulex watch⌚⌚⌚
Michael: Donatell, aren't our shells wonderful? They're presentable and excellent for defense.
Yes, but are they comfortable and easy to wear? I have to know!
I would _hope_ they'd be easy to wear, considering that they're literally part of their skeletal system, fused with their ribs and spine... If not, that's one miserable existence. Turtle Youngsters have it rough, man; no shorts for them.
I think some of these edits are a example of how certain countries shouldn't censor anyone's art, but other then that this review has tons of great effort weaved into our favorite turtle reviewer's love for ninja turtles.
Man, now I want to know what a Chinese Next Mutation dub/sub combo would be like
I wonder what the Chinese translation for Skipping Stones would sound like? 🤔
"Hoseiken Seiko." Think I found the name for a future _Dungeons & Dragons_ samurai character.
Samurai can fight with clubs, right?
4:42 now I want a TMNT/Ghostbusters/Kamen Rider crossover.
oooo sounds fun :D
How about crossing over with Kamen Rider ghost?
I hope he finds other foreign-language versions of Ninja Turtles, because this was HILARIOUS. I thought nothing could top Japan's edit, but China really one-upped them.
The dub that has the most amount of effort put into it, and that's saying a lot because the changes they made to the entire movie are strange.
god damn it I didn't expect to be one of the victims of this scam ring
That's the 4th one of those scammers I've had to block, so annoying those comment don't get caught by the spam filter.
@@phelous thank you phelan :)
Man, that karaoke bit was beautiful.
You really need to think about releasing a full cover.
Karaoke was a “hobby” of mine for a while… mostly get drunk and sing The Doors 😂
Always fun to see you talk about TMNT stuff.
By the way, If you're interested in a Dutch DVD release of TMNT 1990. Let me know, it doesn't have a Dutch dub. But it does have Dutch subtitles.
Lovin’ the new updated outro 😁👍
Hi name twin 😎😉
13:44 The best Chinese version of "Are you trying to tell me how to do MY JOB?!"
I love this film and I've loved finding out about all these different versions from your videos! I remember when the film first came out in the UK I watched the uncensored version first due to my dad managing to borrow a dodgy pirated VHS tape. When it finally got an official VHS release and I watched it again I was very confused - the clumsy edit for Shredder's 'death' stood out the most. I was so sure that Splinter flipped him over with the nunchucks - but I didn't know anyone else who had seen that version so couldn't get anyone to back me up! For years I was convinced there was this alternate ending - it's the closest I've ever been to experiencing the Mandela effect! It was only when scouring the internet as a teenager that I was finally vindicated!
Some Asian people actually choose an English name for themselves (the "Christian name" thing is probably the translators struggling to find similar term), but it' typically starts with the same letter as their original name, so I imagine that scene where Jones calls her "April" is just as nonsensical in the original language
I had a former coworker that called it her "western" name. She went by Heather. I don't remember how it was spelled (started with a Z), but I remember her saying it was pronounced somewhere along the lines of"jacque way".
@@almightycinder Yeah, z or x names tend to be the exception - the April character had an h name
Ah sweet 😂guess my guess was right 🤷♀️
This isn't a thing that is done in ALL of Asia. It is much more common for Chinese people to chose alternate western names than for Japanese people to do so.
I've also heard "Christian name" used to mean first name or given name on British TV shows., but it's not a term I've ever heard anyone in America use.
@@KasumiKenshirou Ralph Fiennes's character in Hail, Caeser! used it like that.
21:15
"Ohhhh! You've melted the mirrorrrrr!"
The heck? That's Professor Coldheart from the 1985 Care Bears series. What an utterly random piece of audio to insert there.
It's like the dubbing crew inserted whatever material they had on hand at the time.
I've heard the Chinese versions at the end before on spotify, when I first heard them I was like WHAAAA?
Oh really? I had no idea they were around anywhere else, heh.
The covers are by a group called Grasshopper, 9.95
ruclips.net/video/Ydl4GUlJcD0/видео.html
Turtle Power
ruclips.net/video/wbKNqIAUxgE/видео.html
And then a slightly different lyric version of 9.95: ruclips.net/video/LGVLb8FKdx4/видео.html which flow wise the lyrics sound better? It's crazy.
Loving these deep dives into obscure home media, keep it up!
I didn't realize the original TMNT movie was so offensive that it needed to be altered so much.
Yes, Masks Riders were popular
and continue to do so
Well at least Germany didn't add any goat sound effects. That would've taken things TOO FAR.
Mentioning the Ghostbusters going after regular crime waves makes me think of Vargskeletor's album.
"The Ghostbusters are ill-equipped. They only brought ghostbusting weapons. But they should've brought
A ShoTguN."
I always enjoy your reviews, and me being such a simple mind, I got so giddy when you set up the I Hate Splinter. (No really, that was really well-telegraphed, just wanted to let you know I appreciate that.)
My actual favorite part was the massive *REFERENCEALITY* of 17:53 though. 💜
(Credit where it's due too: Those songs kinda slap in Cantonese.)
There should be a Backstroke of the West style dub of this Chinese dub of TMNT where it's back in English and the characters are saying what's on the subtitles of this version instead of the original lines
I'd love to hear Robbie Rist or a soundalike of him say "Kick his buttocks with Ninja skills!" or a Josh Pais soundalike scream "Outrageous" into the sky
I once had an officially released Chinese hard sub Simpsons VCD compilation, but it wasn't dubbed. And at a local legit chain store, too. That's the only time I really saw legit VCD's in a store. I can't remember if they had a "used" label on them, even though it was factory sealed, but the store added a label saying the sale of VCD's was final, like you can't return it if it doesn't work.
"Shit." ~ Donatell (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Cantonese version, 1990)
The VCD evening of the 90’s, dude 😎✌️
Time to rock out to the turtles!!!!!!!🥳
a better joke for April to say: SPLinTER's NOT Athletic
It’s actually pretty common for the average Chinese person in China to just throw in some random English into a sentence as a way to make a joke or emphasise something. Also the changes in words could be due to not knowing or having a better translation. “Damn” turning to “Outrageous” being one of those instances. The turtle saying Damn kind of means outrageous in a way. This all doesn’t change the strange plot changes lol.
So much funny stuff here ,but for some reason, Cantonese language shredder telling the turtles in a full on 'kung fu movie bad guy ' voice that splinter "died tragically " cracked me up the most . Also, this dub gives splinter a 'wise old kung fu master' voice , I love it. Keep doing videos on alternate versions of movies phelous, they're great
The characters being given Asian names despite clearly being caucasian is just revenge for all the dubbed Asian films we did in the 60s/70s where we renamed obviously Asian people things like "Bob" and "Susie".
It's like a Reverse of 4Kids Attempt of Americanizing Any Anime they got their liscence from.
The TMNT movies were co-productions with Golden Harvest.
Media Asia also released some of Wong Kar Wai’s earlier films As Tears Go By and Days of Being Wild.
The "well that did not match the intensity of the onscreen performance" bit made me laugh pretty hard xD
Ok two things! 1.phelous silent singing was beautiful 2. Master rat is the coolest name!
27:30 The first two characters here are 鬼面, which means something like "mask of a devil" or "ghost mask". (I assume the last two are the "Jones" part, but I don't know.) The 鬼 character is the one used for the Japanese mythological creature, "Oni".
4:42 Maybe the "Masked Riders" are the Lone Ranger and Tonto, who's promptness was a display of Turtle Power. (The guys from that movie where Tonto wore a dead bird on his head were probably constantly telling people, "We'll be there in half an hour," though.)
28:05 The characters in the name Onitsuka, 鬼塚: The first is the aforementioned "Oni" character. The second character can be translated as burial mound. That's where the "spooky" part comes from. Sato is written as 佐藤. I'm not sure where they got these names from. Both "Onitsuka" and "Sato" are real Japanese surnames. The literal meaning of the characters in Sato are "assistant" and "wisteria".
Ohhh interesting. it seemed like they shoved that into Shredder's name too. Very weird and confusing.
@@KairuHakubi Yeah. The only "Chinese" I know are the characters I learned while studying Japanese (which I'm also not anywhere near fluent in) that both languages use in common, and how to look up what I don't know in a dictionary. So I can't understand most of the text or any of the dialog.
When I looked up the "Onitsuka" characters in an online Chinese dictionary, the definition just said, "The Japanese name Onitsuka".
That Chinese DVD opening made me want to see an off broadway TMNT musical, ala the Beetlejuice or Evil Dead Musical, then you reminded me of the coming out of their shell tour and Getting down in your six flags…
As someone who's seen plenty of old Jackie Chan movies, it's quite surreal seeing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as it it were a Hong Kong action movie from the 80s (which is kinda appropriate since Golden Harvest was involved in the movie's production)
I just realized. When doing the "You stink" circle gag, there was a great opportunity missed by not using the time Splinter said it in Next Mutation.
They kept ninja in the Chinese version when they realised Teenage Mutant Lin-Kuei Turtles just sounded awkward.
I’m pretty sure that Japanese version that removes all the references to Japan is probably a bootleg of the Korean or Chinese versions, Korea still had some laws against positive portrayal of Japan at the time. Why such a bootleg exists I can only speculate.
Those are the official Japanese releases, not bootlegs. This edit would make more sense for the Korean market back then though, that's for sure.
Maybe Japan didn't think it was such a positive portrayal.
@@phelous Weird, I can't find any mention of this sort of thing being done for the cartoon. Maybe this was the English language release for American emigrants/English speakers living in both Japan and Korea, with the same audio track out of an abundance of caution. Doesn't make much sense, but then neither does that release.
@@phelous I think it’s a safe assumption that the print of the film Towa Video was given access for home video copy and distribution was a print made specifically for Korean localization and not Japan. It’s possible that it might have been the only print of the film available on short notice.
@@Vinny792 That's basically what my theory is. There is no other logical reason for them to have a clearly Korean edited version of the movie. Seems like either convenience or a mistake, at least until we get an official account of what happened. There otherwise is no logical reason they'd have a specifically altered version that removes references to Japan for the Japanese market. I guess Phelan would have to get a Korean release of the movie to know for sure.
These subtitles are unsatisfying. I'm going to take this up with the Consumer Council.
The English subs are at decent for the most part. You can at least understand most of it. I've seen some where the subs don't even match what they said and the sentences are so broken you'll be lucky to understand half of what's going on.
That's the original Hong Kong Cantonese dub(way before China took over the country). The dub makes the whole movie feel more like an 80s HK action movie.
Had some memories of you randomly today and I was so happy to see you are still at it. Fan from 2009 checking back in, excited to see what content I have missed out on.
Next Mutation super series really settled in the inside bits for this channel lol, despite being done im still we’re keeping “__” is braindead, “I hate Splinter”, “A new way!”, “What a swinger!” and more not only just for super series but for reviews and even bootleg zones lol
12:24 If old Hong Kong movies are anything to go by, “Yes sir” is a fairly common English loan phrase.
Yeah, I remember hearing that in the original version of Police Story 3: Supercop.
Yay you brought your Casey back! 😁
yeah I missed him too
Didn't think you could make Casey more savage
Raphael and Casey act like the guys in The Princess Bride
Once I dreamed that Splinter and Raphael were just in a church and Splinter was explaining about Heaven/Hell and Raph said that whichever one Splinter went to, he wanted to go too
That dream sounds like something straight out of the original comics
I really like these sorts of videos. Version differences and regional differences are fascinating.
Han Ai Pao would is a the Chinese way of saying April. Ai-pao =April. Han, I think, would be like the beginning of O'Neil (O'Ne?) but don't quote me on that. Another example would be Phelan becoming Fei Lan. Sorry, I taught English overseas and was taught that.
We um don’t get taught that sorry 😅
@@gracekim25 It was taught to me by my Chinese teacher at my university. Talk to them. I do know I messed up somewhere, hence me saying don't quote me.
@@Megared82 cool
The reason they keep dubbing out references to ninjas, ninjutsu, and (maybe) the idea of the "ninja" stuff being Japanese, may have to do with the fact that a lot of people in Japan see ninjas and ninjutsu as bad due to their historic association with assassination and dishonesty. They weren't bound by Bushido, so they could carry out the type of shit that samurai couldn't (officially) do in feudal Japanese politics and conflicts.
Although you can also study ninjutsu in Japan as a graduate program (they accept very few applicants), so idk.
Edit: a lot of ninja-related stuff was/is also censored in UK media, so it could have to do with that, or Japanese ninja censorship could have to do with UK censorship, or neither. I don't know why ninja stuff would be censored from UK TV/movies, other than just because it was considered too violent.
Basically we’re WEENIES
16:11 "Uh oh, Spaghetti."
This was way funnier than what was probably intended.
I love Casey just having a shillelagh for whatever reason.
"Come back here, I'm not finished with Yu! Outrageous!"
Shredder just being flung over by Splinter [ aka master rat] seems like something the original comic would have done. Ah such editing's from other regions.
I gotta find the Chinese versions of the soundtrack now. The teenage mutant Ninja turtles soundtrack is one of my favorites.
16:24 …. Oh my, I had that toy growing up! Besides Ghostbusters toys TMNT was my favorite toy 🤭
Mr. Pao , 跑先生， 寒爱跑 Han AiPao. April's last name is Han, not Pao. Last names are said first. Plus, any weird saying is actually just a Chinese idiom.
I didn't know April was a Kamen Rider Fan.
now that hopefully all the notable changes in versions of TMNT 1 have been covered, we can start finding regional differences in TMNT II and III
I don't believe as radical of differences exist for those movies but if I find something interesting I'm sure I'll cover it.
Noticed that with this version of the film, they swapped some of the American references with local Hong Kong ones, such as April namedropping Leslie Cheung and Sam Hui (5:28) with karaoke and dreaming of Chow Yun Fat (15:00) despite the subtitles still saying Harrison Ford.
Ah, that's interesting! Wonder why they left some dialog not changed like that in the subs.
so basically... localization happened twice. Once into Hong Kong references, then the subtitler changed it BACK to American references.. but kind of biffed the names?
The Hoseikan is the best model of Seiko watch!
Aw, they tried; they spelled out Jose Canseco phonetically, and because in Japanese the first syllable in a word is _usually_ the one with a different inflection, they split the names wrong.
Jose Canseco -> ho-se-i-ke-n-se-i-ko (what they heard aloud) -> hoseikenseiko -> Hoseiken Seiko
I hear Hoseiken Seiko quit baseball to go into the wristwatch business.
honestly, if this were "teenage mutant ninja frogs", deliberately making the disposable goons fly-themed would've been perfect.
Well the scene in the thumbnail dragged it out of me Tell me you didn't pay money for this
This version should’ve had the Turtles greet April by spinning around like idiots’ … & then April says; WHAT A SWINGER!
Michelangelo - * eats vcd* man this pizza taste terrible * insert Michelangelo is brain dead graphic and song*
🤣
Michael is Brain Dead.
Is this a pie?
@@gracekim25 it's a teenage mutant ninja turtle pies
Raphael: MIKEY YOU IDIOT YOU ATE THE DISC FOR OUR MOVIE TONIGHT!