Thai Voice Overs For Foreign Movies

[BangkokHank]

When I'm flipping through the TV channels without really paying too much attention, I can always tell just from the tone of the voices when I'm passing a foreign movie dubbed into Thai: It always sounds like they are speaking Thai, not in the normal Thai way, but in a way that they think foreigners sound when they speak Thai. It always sounds so laughably artificial to me.

The worst dubbing job I ever heard, though, was when I was passing through Romania a few years ago: On an American movie on TV it was possible to hear the original soundtrack in the background while the Romanian-language voice over was basically saying "The guy just said this and then that lady with the black hair said that." It was almost Woody Allen-esque.

And speaking of Woody Allen, in Hungary, one man did the Hungarian voice for all of the Woody Allen movies. His voice was so associated with Woody Allen that once, at a party, after hearing him talking, someone came up to him and said "Hey, it's Woody Allen!", actually thinking it was really him.

[goski]

Steve, correct. I'm more or less fluent after graduating Chulas language course and 7 years in Thailand. So you are also correct that I understand the jokes but just don't "get them". If I was heavily into slapstick or some similar form of physical comedy I would probably enjoy it a bit more. And of course the same thing happens when you put on "Four weddings and a funeral" for Thais. There's just not much there to be laughed about according to most Thais.

Culture divide us and having Eddie Izzard perform at Meuang Thong Thani would probably be the same as having Suthep Po-ngam or why not Sornsutha Klunmalee (the inventor of that for natives hysterically funny "smelly mouth") perfom at Wembley.

I must admit that I'm not sticking to the truth entirely. On rare occassions during a long bus journey it's bareable with an hour of cake slapping or the usual set up of a midget, a katoey, man playing a woman and a deformed human. Just because it makes me think <deleted> is going on!?

[onethailand]

The government parody show, incidentally, was on NBT just now.

Steve's comments are pretty spot on. And some of the comments about pay are also about right. It is usually the same voice-over artists doing everything from cartoons to Korean to Terminator - with minor exceptions for any singing which is translated into Thai, for which there are a few well-known singers who do these (for better pay of course).

The voice-over artists don't complain - there's so much work for them that they make a tidy sum each month.

As for jokes - I understand most, but there are still some that will go over my head, especially the ones with a play on some words which I don't understand. The vague references, however, I do understand - very similar to some movies where a character from another movie shows up in a cameo and if you haven't seen the other movie you might not understand the joke. "Night at the Museum" is brilliant for this.

[Andrew Hicks]

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?

The same people? You mean there's more than one of them?

I think it's just one guy who's swallowing his tonsils and being the hero and the ancient king with a long beard and the slimy lothario all at the same time.

Okay so there's a woman as well. He can't do the ladies yet.

I wonder how it sounds to the Thais.

Maybe they're not too bothered though. It's only foreign rubbish!