Good grief, dubs are done to get past the language barrier. Reading anything more into it just absurd.

I believe I said I saw the original version first Josh, and then the dub. After that was when I concluded one was better than the other.

Which is more than what you reviewers do who don't even bother to give it an honest and open listen to it but bash it anyway.

When did I ever use that as the excuse as to why dubs are a good thing?

Again, you are spouting the same thing you have swallowed without even reading the reality of what I wrote. Even adding your own words as "too lazy to read subtitles" which is the same elitist smug insults you people make.

Dubs are not an "American" thing. They're done all over the world.

I am fluent in Cantonese, watched the original Cantonese cut of the movie in Hong Kong (January 2005) and later watched the subbed DVD at home. The undubbed version was funnier and the dub do lose a few nuances. But this is expected considering how colloquial Cantonese is.

No, that's what subtitles are for.

They are both imperfect solutions with postives and negatives.

As Josh Z previously noted, the benefits of subtitles far outweigh their negatives as they preserve the original performance of the actors. Whether or not you perceive the dub as an "improvement" on the film is irrevelent as you are no longer watching the film conceived by the artists behind it.

That's of little use when the veiwer has no familiarty with the native language being spoken. Pauses between words, certain words stressed, all those little verbal nuances are lost with subs as well. At least all those things can potentially be emulated with dubs. Plus, I'm sure I'll get labeled by some trogladite for saying so, but I find reading movie dialogue just plain hampers my enjoyment of watching a movie. Bottom line is any time translations are involved in anything you run the risk of losing something from the original source. Honestly, this isn't even worth arguing about.

I find it funny that people can be so opinionated about what truely is a personal preference.

"You're an idiot!! Red is a much better color than blue!!!"

Dvdtimes updated their article with a look at the artwork.

Photochop city ... they just took the artwork of the first DVD, pasted a front-facing image of Stephen Chow over his image on the original cover, and splashed some very out-of-place blue color on the background. Oh, and he's holding a lollipop in one hand and an axe in the other. WTF, he never even used an axe in the film.

in respopnse to some comments: the movie doesnt seem so funny when you can understand cantonese, like myself. some fo the jokes are pretty lame when you understand them in their native context. maybe the subtitles are funnier. i like this movie strictly for the fights and special effects, the jokes are okay...

anyways, those seems like pretty lame edits. they seem pretty tame compred to some other PG-13 movies out there.

Hmmmmm.....

Not getting into the whole subbed versus dubbed argument again (done with that ), I've always heard that what made Stephen Chow funny with native HK audiences was his brand of "nonsense speak" (I forget the Cantonese word for it). His clever wordplay was what audiences mostly laughed at, but it's supposedly near impossible to successfully translate that into another language (either subs or dubs) so foreign audiences miss the humour. And perhaps this is why his films have progressively involved more slapstick and physical comedy because if Chow wanted to garner an international following he had to go beyond clever wordplay comedy that non-Cantonese speaking audiences would never really appreciate. Anyway, I just thought of this, and thought it odd that people here have mentioned that Cantonese speaking friends they know thought the Cantonese track wasn't that funny. Was it just KUNG FU HUSTLE specifically, or do they feel the same way about all Chow films?

i have the Hong Kong version...

not much different i guess but i prefer it...

The term is "mo lei tau" or "nonsense comedy," and refers to the comedy in general employed in the film, not just the verbal wordplay.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mo_lei_tau

It's in reference to the random way all kinds of disassociated gags collide in his films. The best example in the two films by Chow released in the US is the scene in Shaolin Soccer where a soccer fight transforms into a literal battlefield for his character. The closest the West has to these type of films are what we call "spoofs," like Blazing Saddles or the early work of ZAZ, a "through everything at the wall and see what sticks" sense of comedy.

It is true that a lot of his earlier films had him employing clever wordplay and puns as well. These are indeed hard to translate. I don't speak Cantonese, but my wife does, and she has occasionally ventured to try and explain some of the jokes. One film of his, Flirting Scholar, is notable for having so many of these hard-to-translate jokes that for one verbal sparring scene the translator of the subtitle just gives up and starts writing out the alphabet. The jokes are usually double-entendres, where Chow is saying something that literally means one thing, but sounds very much like something else at the same time.

Some people have bemoaned that his films have used less verbal wordplay more recently, but his films have always employed a good amount of slapstick and silly situations as well, so it's not a huge change.

Another thing is that his comedies have often employed a lot of references to Cantonese and Hong Kong culture. So a particular scene may be parodying a recent TV commercial, or he may riff on local movie cliches, or he may imitate the voice of a famous Hong Kong romantic lead. Shaolin Soccer had a number of references to his own previous films, and Kung Fu Hustle had a lot of references to old kung fu movies. Western audiences may be familiar with some of these elements, but not all.

LiK was the only one to say he didn't find the Cantonese track funny, and Lastblade's post directly contradicts it. I've listened to parts of Mandarin dub tracks for his films, and I can say the Cantonese tracks are better for me despite not understanding either language. Contrary to what SteelWill claimed, verbal nuances aren't necessarily erased with subtitles, and Stephen Chow's comic timing and delivery can be enjoyed even when you don't directly understand what's being said.