Thai Voice Overs For Foreign Movies

[Smithson]

I'm sure many of you have heard the voices overs for foriegn movies dubbed in Thai. It always seems to be the same ppl putting on different voices and they've been doing it for years now. It can sound quite funny, especially when the laugh or put on kid's voices.

Does anyone have info on the 'voice over' ppl?

[bkkjames]

I'm sure many of you have heard the voices overs for foriegn movies dubbed in Thai. It always seems to be the same ppl putting on different voices and they've been doing it for years now. It can sound quite funny, especially when the laugh or put on kid's voices.

Does anyone have info on the 'voice over' ppl?

Probably the same one's that do those quality subtitles in English.

[Beacher]

I'm sure many of you have heard the voices overs for foriegn movies dubbed in Thai. It always seems to be the same ppl putting on different voices and they've been doing it for years now. It can sound quite funny, especially when the laugh or put on kid's voices.

Does anyone have info on the 'voice over' ppl?

Geez, I don't think they even bother putting on different voices -- they always sound the exact same to me, movie after movie for ages now.

[Who, me ?]

It does not sound funny, it sounds ridiculous !!

[issanpaul]

It does not sound funny, it sounds ridiculous !!

I Agree

[Uros]

The idiot voiceover mafia.

I know many Thai people that just hate them, as they are always adlibbing stupid jokes not in the script etc.

[girlx]

hmm maybe i am not the only one who gets irrationally annoyed at that voice!

[joncl]

Probably the same one's that do those quality subtitles in English.

Different people and companies. My father-in-law does many of the Chinese to Thai and Thai to Chinese TV series and movies. But when you are only paying a few thousand baht per movie, for the translation you do not always get the best

[Smithson]

Probably the same one's that do those quality subtitles in English.

Different people and companies. My father-in-law does many of the Chinese to Thai and Thai to Chinese TV series and movies. But when you are only paying a few thousand baht per movie, for the translation you do not always get the best

That's interesting, it really sounds like the same ppl have been doing them for all movies for years now.

[ashacat]

I've got to agree here, they sound ridiculous!

[Boater]

A friend of mine does the voice overs for the Disney Movies, also the ' Sing ' overs....

The pay is really bad as well, 5 K a day.

[kiakaha]

5K is ok for a thai !

Edited August 29, 2008 by kiakaha

[kmart]

I think its the same set of people doing these voice-overs for many years now. The male lead always speaks in a "siang law" (handsome voice) same as the voices on adverts / pickups blaring adverts. The female lead always speaks in a dizzy whisper. The point seems to be to trivialize or ridicule any plot or serious point the movie might be trying to make?

Basically, I cannot stand to watch any Western movie dubbed in Thai.

[bkkjames]

Slightly off topic but wanted to know, does anybody else wonder who is in charge of picking the movies they bring to Thailand?

Take a look at the paper on anyday to see what's playing and it's usually some real crap like 'Super Car Racers' and the like.

Meanwhile, anytime I see movies being sold on the street, there seems to be alot of potentially interesting one's that never make it to the big screen here. Is it anywonder why movies only stay in the theatres here for a week or two, such crap that they are.

Just ranting I know.

[grtaylor]

Not as bad as the first time I went to Viet Nam (HCMC) and watched a dubbed movie there. One woman was doing the voices of ALL the characters in the movie, including the men!!!

[12DrinkMore]

A friend of mine does the voice overs for the Disney Movies, also the ' Sing ' overs....

The pay is really bad as well, 5 K a day.

Pay really bad?

1. Two days "worK" and he has earned more that the national average monthly wage, they could prabobly pay half and have a queue of thousands wanting the job.

2. All he has to do is read a text.

3. I agree with all the posters, the voice-overs are absolute rubbish and very irritating. The male voice sounds like he has a nasal blockage. They certainly don't deserve the money they get paid.

[Wandering]

What I find very upsetting is that the translations are made in such a way as to make the English speaker sound exceptionally impolite.

When a child replies in English "yes sir" to his parents the Thai translaters turn it into a rude "Up yours" kind of a translation.

It is no wonder that Thais assume that English speakers are rude. Every time Thai's read the subtitles or hear a translation they are given the constant subtle propaganda that we all speak like New York cab drivers to each other. I am sure that this is more than a conspiracy theory. I think it is an active campaign to keep Thais in the "paw pieng" (Screw the world we only need ourselves) mentality.

[Beacher]

Wow, I'm going to mark this day in my calendar -- 16 posts in a TV thread that all basically agree.

No insults and general mud slinging. Just everybody in agreement that Thai voice-overs in English language movies are for the most part irritating. I think the only other time I remember this type of overall agreement happening is when an OP complained about baht bus drivers -- I don't think anybody likes them.

[goski]

17 then. Yes, they are ridiculous and of course it is the same two people for all movies or TV shows. Now, I happened to watch some program showing a boy that had fallen down at a zoo in America. I think it was in the bears den or something. Doesn't matter. What matter is that since it was on UBC I could switch between Thai and English and not only did the boy have a woman's voice (the dubbed version of course) but also did the female dubber add crying and speech that the kid obviously didn't make!

Also, a funny thing was one time when I was living in Paris and the first Mr Bean movie had just come out. They interviewed Rowan Atkinson in a tv show but all they cared about was the guy dubbing Mr Bean in the series. I mean, how much is there to dub!? They showed a short clip from one of the episodes where the guy dubbed "one two three" to be "un deux trois". And of course, the muttering and stuff was also dubbed.

[rixalex]

Going a little off-topic, but on the subject of what most annoys you about Thai TV.. for me it has to be the pantomine cymbal noise that accompanies every punch line or one-liner that is deemed funny.

Does sophisticated humour such as satire even exist on Thai TV? If so, i've yet to see it.

[goski]

Well, we all have different kinds of humour but Thai humour is still a mystery to me. Actually, it is not so much only Thai humour but also the sitcom stuff from China, Hong Kong, Singapore etc etc. I think I just don't get Asian humour. A face smeared in talcum powder is just not funny, it can't be because it would mean the end of the world.

[goski]

Rix, is that comedy show with puppet politicians still on? It used to be even though I never watched it. But then again I don't think the satire would have been very sharp since the actors probably wouldn't have made it home alive. Maybe that's why I haven't seen it for such as long time.

[rixalex]

Rix, is that comedy show with puppet politicians still on? It used to be even though I never watched it. But then again I don't think the satire would have been very sharp since the actors probably wouldn't have made it home alive. Maybe that's why I haven't seen it for such as long time.

You mean there is (or was) a Thai version of Spitting Image? Really? Never saw or heard about it. Can't imagine how it would work though as no Thai politician would put up with being ridiculed, not without dishing out some law-suits anyway!

[jeffer]

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/search/rea...keyword=dubbing

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/search/rea...keyword=dubbing

[Payboy]

is that comedy show with puppet politicians still on?

is the pope catholic......?

[12DrinkMore]

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/search/rea...keyword=dubbing

...

Amazingly, she spends only one or two days completing the translation for an entire movie...

...and then sometimes the right word just pops up into my mind without my having to think about it."

I think we have found the reason,

She knocks out the translation in a few hours without thinking a lot.

What can we expect?

[steveromagnino]

Rix, is that comedy show with puppet politicians still on? It used to be even though I never watched it. But then again I don't think the satire would have been very sharp since the actors probably wouldn't have made it home alive. Maybe that's why I haven't seen it for such as long time.

You mean there is (or was) a Thai version of Spitting Image? Really? Never saw or heard about it. Can't imagine how it would work though as no Thai politician would put up with being ridiculed, not without dishing out some law-suits anyway!

There was also a TV show with live actors who imitated most of the entire cabinet and adopted their mannerisms, Robot Government I think it was called on ITV during the about 1999 - 2005 period; very popular and extremely mean althuogh of course slightly censored as ITV belonged to Shin which was Thaksin's company; however not much; they still went after people quite hard.

A huge amount of the stand up comedy, not the talc powder face stuff, but some of the content is fairly hardcore political satire, I guess I can only really discuss this with people who actually speak THai at a high enough level to appreciate some of the jokes; kind of like how only someone who speaks fairly good english and has spent time in the UK could appreciate say Harry Enfield and the various outlandish yet strangely accurate caricatures of the various types of englishmen there are. There are many ways to aim insults at people legally in Thai, I still vividly remember the classic comment from Chuwit in a censure debate when after attacking I think it was Suriya and going off subject, the house speaker demanded he get back on subject, to which he said yes of course, after all we are not talking about pajeros in a kind of mutter under his breath.

Of course this being an obscure reference to a case from about 10 years earlier when Suriya's relatives (and I am fairly sure it was Suriya) were caught having imported several automobiles without having paid appropriate duty on them including, a Pajero which is quite a distinctive name in Thai. That's comedy.

Many of the movie adlibs are kind of references to this sort of line, and I have no idea who is complaining about the scripting but certainly there is one team responsible for most of the Chinese comedies that many Thais will specifically watch/buy e.g. Shaolin Soccer simply because they put a lot of effort into giong off script. The Shaolin Soccer soundtrack in THai for instance includes family guy/that Woody Allen film he got the oscar for what's up tiger lily was it type comedy which is wildly off course and irrevelantly amusing. The less educated, the less likely the jokes will be funny. The Chinese movies are mostly for the Thai Chinese population and hence, tend to be a little more Bangkok centric in some of those in jokes.

The sounds of the voices are not exactly that captivating for some shows, but certainly Korean soaps don't seem to suffer. Perhaps you lot are surrounded by people watching low budget utter s&*t which probably sounds just as bad in english as in Thai, I mean can you imagine how a movie like Anaconda could possibly be worse; ok we have the impossibly fake snake; the stupid crazy silly story line, the attempt at gripping drama, poor production and actors with the expressive range of a botoxed 50 year old; I know what can put us over the edge...let's allow that team of Thais to do the subtitles with no prep and just one man and one woman and then sell that to the local market. Crocadilis I saw it labeled as once.

As to who chooses the movies, again this is a choice between distributor as to what is available/what price balanced with what people will watch. Just because Patpong illegal markets have a bunch of farang wanting to watch some obscure art house film from France, it doesn't mean that the same film would succeed for the Thai market where there are probably less than 1% of movie goers who are French, and probably less than 2% who are farang. And at the end of the day, the world over we have stuff like the Day after tomorrow or the Star wars first two episodes being top raters and classics such as Freddie Got Fingered, well he didn't get a general release in Thailand did he!

The world over most of what is on is total c&*p as that's what most people want to see. How else do you explain utter drivel on TV, in the movie theatres and on DVD? It is like McDs, coke, Budweiser etc - in catering to the majority we end up with lowest common denominator rubbish.

Goski - I assume you speak Thai, so is it that you can't comprehend the jokes or that you can comprehend but they aren't funny?

[Hawkup2000]

Whats bugs me is they seem to only have 4 people with monotone voices to do all voice overs. Arnold, Mel Gibson, Hugh Grant have all the same voice...

[petitechevre]

the deep male voice makes me want to go on a killing spree.

[steveromagnino]

the deep male voice makes me want to go on a killing spree.

would you prefer a high pitched falsetto, I think you should spend more time at Casanova then :-)