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Ghost Of Tsushima director wants entire movie's cast and language to be Japanese

DeepEnigma

Gold Member

Fbh

Member
Probably not the best idea if they want it to succeed in the USA. You guys are so used to most entertainment being in your native language that I doubt people will be too excited about an american production where they have to read substitles for the whole movie

The game devs said all this crap too and they never followed through on it. Kurosawa mode looked like shit, and everyone spoke american.

The Ps5 has a proper japanese mode (with correct lip sync so it does't look like a dub). It's just a shame you need a $500 console and a $19.99 upgrade to enjoy it.

What's the alternative choice for the cast? English and native Americans?

I guess other non Japanese asian actors.
Like Andrew Koji from the TV show Warrior who is half Japanese half half British but plays a Chinese immigrant
 
The amount of good Korean movies is insane. Plenty of good movies from all over the world.

Some people are missing out.
Not only korean, but there's so many local european movies that are great.

I know people in America (in general) watched Squid Game (Korean) and Dark (Germany) dubbed in english but i just...don't get it.

I thought that since this was a videogame forum there would be a lot of anime fans, so i'd click this topic and everyone would love this approach...which is why i was disappointed when i started reading the replies but oh well...
 

Robb

Gold Member
Sounds too good to be true.

I’d have expected actors representing every part of the world, a couple of gay/bi couples with adopted children and the protagonist to be called they/them. But maybe they’re saving that for the Netflix adaptation.
 
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Doom85

Member
Disagree. I think people are lot more receptable given that your example is from over 15 years ago. I would be curious to see the data on Squid Games on dubbed vs subbed. I would garner more people watched it subbed.

Netflix’s Dark ran from 2017 to 2020. How much more of a recent example do you want?
 

sendit

Member
Netflix’s Dark ran from 2017 to 2020. How much more of a recent example do you want?

Most people can't be pestered to switch what is default by region.


Given the most recent success of Squid Games defaults to Korean in the US, people didn't just turn it off. This show literally eclipsed Stranger Thing's in popularity.
 
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Fattious Floyd

Neo Member
I was hoping for Elliot Paige as Jin Sakai...and perhaps Jack Black as Khotun Khan? But maybe this whole Japanese cast could work as well...I dunno....
 
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DeepEnigma

Gold Member
Shit!! Didnt know that.. played with english because of bad sync reports
Time for a replay!
Ghost Of Tsushima Kiss GIF by PlayStation
 

HTK

Banned
Are we celebrating common sense now days?

The game is centered around the Japanese history, lore, and culture. No shit the movie should have Japanese cast and language, this is a no brainer but I guess we applaud common sense these days because it shows how much common sense we've lost as a society recently.
 
I will wait for the Netflix adaptation:

John Smith is a tourist who wanted to visit the island since he played the game, half of the movie is he visiting Japan and Akibara, but due to something strange, he times travels to the island when the Mongols invade it. Now with his game knowledge, he will fight with his sidekick "Shinji-Kun". To add variety the Mongols brought slaves from other countries (USA, UK, Africa) who will have a side story for freedom/love and will help our hero.

Movie Popcorn GIF by Angry Birds
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
I will wait for the Netflix adaptation:

John Smith is a tourist who wanted to visit the island since he played the game, half of the movie is he visiting Japan and Akibara, but due to something strange, he times travels to the island when the Mongols invade it. Now with his game knowledge, he will fight with his sidekick "Shinji-Kun". To add variety the Mongols brought slaves from other countries (USA, UK, Africa) who will have a side story for freedom/love and will help our hero.

Movie Popcorn GIF by Angry Birds
Played by Zendaya.
 

IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
If the film is to be as immersive and accurate as possible, then the cast can only be ethnic Japanese (and Mongolian of course), plus speak the relevant languages. No English language at all.

I know some people don't like to read subtitles, but fuck those people. Some of the best films I've ever seen have been foreign language films (Ran and Come and See are two great examples). If anybody refuses to watch a film because it's not in English then it's their loss.
 

Fbh

Member
I didn't know that. That's really cool. Can you turn off the annoying slow mo?

Don't know haven't actually played it. I was waiting till I had a Ps5 to play it at 60fps and with proper Japanese lip sync.
Apparently the reason why it's only on ps5 is because on Ps5 they can do the cutscenes in real time while on ps4 they had to use pre rendered ones, so you'd have to download a ton of large pre rendered cutscenes just to change the lipsync)
 

A.Romero

Member
Any kind of dubbing sucks, even the best ones. Nothing like original language.

If they want to make an historic drama based in Japan and be taken seriously, the og language is a given.

Sorry for everyone that can't handle subs, you are missing out on a lot of good shit.
 

TheGecko

Banned
Imagine if someone tried to make a movie set in old times and they said they wanted a 100% white cast.

Where's the pink haired abc lunatic mob?
 

Gaelyon

Gold Member
I don't speak japanese but played Ghost of Tsushima with japanese VO and french subtitles (i'm french), and it was great and it never bothered me.
When i'm seeing a movie it's always with the original language and subs, you get used to it and it's wonderful to hear the real actors and the ring of each languages. Movies like Babel or Letters from Iwo jima benefits even more having every language spoken instead of generic english.
 
Cool for the people who love this kind of thing, but subtitles are distracting and completely take me out of the movie/show. Makes me less likely to watch.

I'm just astounded by how slowly some people must read if they can't stand subtitles.

It has nothing to do with readspeed, even if it takes you 1/10th of a second to read each subtitle line, that's 1/10th of a second you're not focusing on the characters, or the background, or any other important things on the screen. Being able to understand what's being said by your ears instead of your eyes makes things way more interesting imo. As opposed to hearing a language you can't understand. It's only really tolerated for me when it's a language that the character(s) or the audience aren't supposed to understand
 

Lasha

Member
This is by far the most weeb thing to do, which will ultimately make for a less successful film. Get a Japanese director and produce it in collaboration with a Japanese studio if you feel so passionately about “keeping it real”. Otherwise this is just Avatar the last airbender: an American production masquerading as Japanese.


Plenty of Korean directors are doing great things in Hollywood. Snowpiercer was the first big one that I remember. There's no reason why an American crew couldn't make a good samurai film. Japanese cast and language is a good start.
 

Lasha

Member
Not only korean, but there's so many local european movies that are great.

I know people in America (in general) watched Squid Game (Korean) and Dark (Germany) dubbed in english but i just...don't get it.

I thought that since this was a videogame forum there would be a lot of anime fans, so i'd click this topic and everyone would love this approach...which is why i was disappointed when i started reading the replies but oh well...

A preference for dubbing isn't uniquely American. Germany is huge on dubbing. Major actors have a German voice who is as well known. You always need to check if a movie is OmU or OmeU or OmU+ if you want subs. Post Soviet world is the same. My wife used to watch day 1 dubs of TV shows where a random guy does all of the characters while the original audio plays in the background. I saw Moana in Tbilisi and the entire movie was in badly dubbed Georgian except for the songs. People prefer to listen instead of read I guess.
 

Kilau

Gold Member
Subtitles distract from the movie.
I feel that way for anime, a good dub there is fine with me since it’s just another actor performing to an animation but for live action I’ll always use subtitles to hear the actual performance of the actor on screen.
 

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
do you also watch animes...dubbed?
Yeah. More often than not the voice acting is superior to the original a lot of time.
One of the cringiest parts of anime is how absurdly dramatic the Japanese VAs would voice the characters, it turned me off for a while because I don't like hearing overly acted grunts and ear piercingly high pitched, unrealistic girls all the time. Dubs usually have a more laid back direction to the point where I can watch them more comfortably without my face turning into a chasm.
Unless the dub is absolutely abysmal voice acting wise I never pick sub.

As for this though, since it's a movie and not anime I suspect the Japanese voice acting will actually be serious and dark and not comically exaggerated like most anime, so I appreciate this decision. It makes sense afterall
 
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Kabelly

Member
Joe Dirt 2 Fan GIF


English, breh. Video game adaptations have struggled enough as it is, and let's face it this ain't going to be in the same league as a Kurosawa film.
They already botched Uncharted by casting Twink Holland as Nathan. All Japanese cast would be 100x better than that.
 

Jennings

Member
Sure, whatever. Let Japan make whatever sort of movie they want, however they want. Same goes for any other country.
 

OsirisBlack

Banned
All Japanese cast (at least for the major actors, they could probably be more lenient on extras in the background). Yeah, that’s possible.

The whole cast speaking Japanese the entire film? Err…..

Morgan Freeman Good Luck GIF


I remember hearing countless horror stories from theater employees when Pan’s Labyrinth released. People coming back to the ticket booth and being all, “what is this crap, we have to read the film?! Why isn’t this in English, this is America!”
”Well, sir, the film is set in Spai-“
”AMERICA!!!”

Now the film still did well in spite of these dumbass motherfuckers, but the film’s budget was pretty modest. A film like Ghost of Tsushima though will have a much bigger budget and I doubt any studio is going to be willing to make that big a financial risk.

And no, generally people have not become more open minded about subtitles since then. Netflix reported 78% of their viewers watched the series Dark dubbed versus the original German version.

Awkward Oh No GIF by CBC
Apocalypto
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
All I'm getting from this is, the movie going try very hard to be like "Kurosawa film" but fails miserably.

You can have all Japanese casts and make it black & white but without Kurosawa talent you are not making Kurosawa film.
 
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