Same. Since Ke Huy Quan spoke cantonese in the previous scene in the temple of doom, I ask my mum (who is a cantonese) to see if she understands what Indiana Jones is saying, but she say she doesn't even understand what he's saying
My understanding is that Ke Huy Quan speaks fluent Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese and English, so I think the decision to only have him speak Mandarin in Everything Everywhere was for the reasons you stated--to show that each of the characters had a different Chinese immigration story.
He's not fluent in Mandarin...he's been in some Mandarin drama from Taiwan in his younger years and his voice was dubbed because he's not fluent....and I've heard his recent interviews for his latest movie from the Chinese speaking media....half of his replies were in English
The main reason was so that way there’s a barrier between Stephanie’s character and Michelle and her grandfather’s. If they all spoke Cantonese it wouldn’t make sense
When Ke Huy Quan was a kid, I'm pretty sure he only spoke Cantonese and didn't know Mandarin yet. He was born in Vietnam and most Chinese-Vietnamese spoke Cantonese. His name is in Vietnamese by the way (Quan Kế Huy). In Cantonese, his name would be Kwan Gai-wai (關繼威). I'm Vietnamese-Canadian and I grew up knowing many Chinese-Vietnamese and all of them spoke Cantonese but not Mandarin. People in Chinatown across North America also spoke mainly Cantonese. Heck, even Vietnamese was more present in some Chinatowns than Mandarin. Only with the rise of China's economy and influence did Mandarin started to seeped into Chinatowns of our Western cities. I think Ke Huy Quan only started to learn Mandarin later on.
"Anything Goes" is the title song to a 1934 Broadway musical written by Cole Porter. Several other songs from that musical also became standards in the American song book, including "I Get a Kick Out of You", "It's De-Lovely", and "You're the Top".
The actor playing Lao Che, Roy Chiao, was a native Cantonese/Shanghainese speaker from Shanghai who had a long acting career in Hong Kong. He's actually a fascinating person with a really interesting life.
Short Round explaining in English makes sense. He's not giving away what's about to happen to the people following them, just giving enough information for Willie to know to hold on. And then he put his arm around her, just in case she doesn't react in time. These tiny things is what makes Short Round such an underrated character. And Ke Huy Quan is definitely an underrated actor. I'm so happy he's getting more time in front of the cameras now.
By the way, thanks for highlighting these films. As a Mandarin learner, it can be rather frustrating, because one thinks one should be able to understand by now what's being said... and, worse, if a friend asks, it can be rather embarrassing. 😖
You’re exactly right! When I first started learning Chinese, several friends wanted to show me Firefly and always asked if I could understand anything. I always assumed my level wasn’t good enough, but thanks to Jessie I have the confidence to explain that most Chinese in movies and tv is just really bad and can’t be understood by anyone.
Yea, I wish instead of subtitles that just say "speaking Mandarin," for example, we got titles of the actual words. Then those who know could understand and those who don't would at least have a sense of it.
Haha. The opening sequence was set in (NOT FILMED IN) Shanghai. And the song "Anything goes" was/is very well known. If this helps with the sound soup Kate Capshaw was singing the opening lyric, in English, is "In olden days a glimps of stocking was looked as something shocking now heaven knows... anything goes" (there were a number of versions depending on when in America it was sung so 'heaven' could be 'good god' 'cause Americans go out of their way to be upset). Thanks for this. I love these reviews. 😁😁
The first scene with Kate Capshaw was said she was singing about bullsh*t. (Somebody translated it, but can't confirm.)There is a clip of her singing in complete Mandarin on RU-vid. You'll be surprised at the age of the guy who helped Kate sing in Mandarin. Same for Big Trouble in Little China.
Thank you for your reaction. My faith in Dr. Jones did not disappoint. I just watched your reaction to Everything Everywhere at Once and I wondered if Ke Huy Kuan's Chinese was different.♥
'Anything Goes' is an old Cole Porter song. Here are the lyrics if it helps, but I think she starts singing from the line "In olden days, a glimpse of stocking.." I'll put a heart next to it ❤ Times have changed And we've often rewound the clock Since the Puritans got a shock When they landed on Plymouth Rock. If today Any shock they should try to stem 'Stead of landing on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock would land on them. ❤In olden days, a glimpse of stocking Was looked on as something shocking. But now, God knows, Anything goes. Good authors too who once knew better words Now only use four-letter words Writing prose. Anything goes. If driving fast cars you like, If low bars you like, If old hymns you like, If bare limbs you like, If Mae West you like, Or me undressed you like, Why, nobody will oppose. When ev'ry night the set that's smart is in- Truding in nudist parties in Studios. Anything goes. When Missus Ned McLean (God bless her) Can get Russian reds to "yes" her, Then I suppose Anything goes. When Rockefeller still can hoard en- Ough money to let Max Gordon Produce his shows, Anything goes. The world has gone mad today And good's bad today, And black's white today, And day's night today, And that gent today You gave a cent today Once had several chateaux. When folks who still can ride in jitneys Find out Vanderbilts and Whitneys Lack baby clo'es, Anything goes. If Sam Goldwyn can with great conviction Instruct Anna Sten in diction, Then Anna shows Anything goes. When you hear that Lady Mendl standing up Now turns a handspring landing up- On her toes, Anything goes. Just think of those shocks you've got And those knocks you've got And those blues you've got From that news you've got And those pains you've got (If any brains you've got) From those little radios. So Missus R., with all her trimmin's, Can broadcast a bed from Simmons 'Cause Franklin knows Anything goes.
Ke Huy Quan was born on August 20, 1971, in Saigon, South Vietnam (present-day Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam) to Vietnamese parents of Chinese descent. The Hoa people (華人 or 唐人) are Vietnamese people of full or partial Han Chinese ancestry, mostly deriving their recent ancestral heritage from the 18th century, especially from southern Chinese provinces. They are an ethnic minority group in Vietnam and a part of the overseas Chinese community in Southeast Asia. They may also be called "Chinese-Vietnamese" or "Chinese people living in/from Vietnam" by the Vietnamese and Chinese diaspora and by Overseas Vietnamese.
Ric Young is the guy from The Last Emperor, who shows up in this movie. I like his performance in The Last Emperor. He's enjoyably despicable and over-the-top in that role.
Interesting this movie is a mix of Mandarin, Shanghainese and Cantonese. For context, this movie had a setting in the 30's in Shanghai... Firstly, Mandarin in the 1930s was in the early years of standardization and you'd just as likely hear northern and southern Mandarin dialect pronunciations and vocab. In Shanghai, Mandarin was largely the language of government and the arts, Shanghainese for business and everyday and Cantonese had even less profile in the working class. So the dialect usage in the movie is interesting and appropriate. In my opinion, a far more interesting time for the Chinese language, a time before the benefits of simplification and national language standards -- and suppression of regional dialects.
So…according to the Jet-Li film “Hero”, Emperor Qin embarked upon a plan of standardising Chinese language with a view to building a cohesive culture. Apparently two thousand years later and Chinese 1.0 still isn’t ready for release :/
@@timeodaneosetdona Its kind of hard centralize when there are so many spoken dialects where the native speakers can number in the millions and tens of millions. And between northern and southern dialects. This has been an on going problem since the 1st Emperor. Here's some history of the infighting among Chinese language scholars centuries ago. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ME8wzyR6pO8.html
It's kind of sad to see how little effort is usually put into "foreign" language scenes in most movies. I can understand it to some degree in older movies like this one because the contact between countries was significantly less than today. But when new TV shows and movies do the same thing? I mean, it's easy to get in touch with native speakers of pretty much any language to make the lines sound so much better. I think they just don't care enough, or maybe they don't think the audience cares... Well, I do! Either way, I love your content though Jessie. Always entertaining and educational! 👍
Just a side note. The German spoken by the Nazis in Raiders of the Lost Ark was perfect apparently. I don't speak German, but I watched a movie reaction of a German RU-vidr and she said the actors playing the Nazis were probably real Germans.
Great video! I've always wondered what they said in these scenes and alway thoyght it was good that it wasn't subtitled because it works as an audience member to not know what's coming lol. I understand what you are saying about the languages and sounds, and we are a bit more sensitive to these kinds of details today however the thing people miss is Indiana Jones was supposed to be a call back to the old television serials of the 1930s and 40s so it may have been in part intentional for it to be bad or off. Ps I love your language and accent, its beautiful.
Thanks for the analysis. I love Temple of Doom. The only bits I knew from it were the lines in the club so it's interesting to see and hear what's being said in the other lines. I think it would be interesting to see at some point a reaction to the lines in 'Brainsmasher: a love story'. Out of curiosity
I just found you today by accident with this video. As an Indiana Jones fan (well not that part exactly but the Last Crusade) I was glad to see your reactions.
This film was made just at the start of the Chinese economic miracle, so MUCH greater emphasis on Hong Kong rather than Mainland. As to the languages and dialogues in hollywood films: whether its marketing or politics I Consistently see just butchered language in movie after movie its so bothersome because this is ALL or THE FIRST foreign language exposure many people will ever get... and it sucks so they don't get more. I wanted you to see review this not only for any cultural commentary or insights but because their language usages seemed to suck so bad i was asking myself at time "is that French?!?" I was trying to figure out what I was getting wrong which was : i don't speak canto or shanghainese and: their pronunciation sucks, but i wasn't certain, since it's not my first language. What did you guys think of this film culturally? Was it just horrible imperialism or a great adventure?
Oh, it's staggeringly racist. I mean, it is supposed to be a homage to old pulp stories of the 20s and the like and, while they do have their charm, you really, REALLY don't need to incorporate the racism. And this film did so. Very much NOT one of my favourites.
@@samovarsa2640 if they didn’t people wouldn’t call it accurate depiction of the times. Was it terrible? Yes but if you’re going to depict it might as well include the attitudes
She's supposedly singing "Anything Goes" in another language. The only English words were "Anything Goes". It seems it was supposed to be Mandarin. A quick dig around online found the "lyrics" someone thinks she's singing, so you can follow along with these - although it does look like these are wrong in a couple of places. And I found another RU-vid video where someone has tried to understand the lyrics and typed them out in Chinese, so I've included their translation and comments below too. Enjoy. 💓 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yi wang de si wa yi kan dao Xing li bian yao la jing bao jin tian zhi dao Anything goes Yi wang yi lu jiu cha zhen mei hao Qing shu shu shua le feng ye ni dao yi dao Anything goes Wan hua chen shi yi yi dao dao Bian hua wei bao bian wei dao Meng huan dong shi da du shi Do shi wei ni fu shao Ze qi wo dui fei hua long qing liao Dong hua dong feng song dao shou yi ding hui bao Anything goes ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 以往絲襪一看到心裡便要拉警報，今天知道 In olden days a glimpse of stockings was shocking, but now I know Anything goes. 以往有作家熟悉美好金詩，時下牛糞眼裡倒一倒 Authors once knew golden poems, but today all you see are garbage/b*llsh*t Anything goes. 瘋狂世界現已顛倒，照片會一百遍偽造 The mad world has gone upside down, photos would be fabricated a hundred times 他們總忘記大多事情會很可笑； People always forget how ridiculous most things are; 可惜我雖非他的夢中情人，但我總知道到時一定回報* Although I'm not his dream lover, I always know knew my wish will eventually be answered Anything goes. * The last two Chinese lines were mostly guessed because it's very unclear. Note: someone has recently pointed out that the last two lines matched Frank Sinatra's version. So 他的夢中情人 (his dream lover) may actually be 大情聖 (great romancer) or 大情郎 (great lover) - the syllables are close enough - although both 情聖 and 情郎 are used to describe men, unless Willie Scott was singing from a man's point of view (unlikely). -------------------------------------------------------------------------
oh my Ke Huy Kuan was so young back then... i didn't linked the boy to the adult version at all (vice versa) until you pointed it out in your previous video!
Hi Jessie!! Thank you so much for reviewing this movie. I’ve been learning Mandarin for over ten years and I have never been able to understand the song. I think they didn’t teach the actress how to pronounce anything and it’s just jibberish!
I think Stephanie Hsu does not speak Cantonese so having Waymond speak Mandarin allows us to believe that Joy would speak Mandarin at home as well. As opposed if both Waymond and Evelyn spoke Cantonese and Joy spoke Mandarin.
This reminds me a bit of the Monty Python Life of Brian movie where Brian is caught writing seditious phrases, and the Romans punish him for his terrible Latin. I have quite enjoyed learning a little of how Cantonese differs from Mandarin. I asked a Mandarin speaker how different they were, and they just got angry with me. I know a tiny bit of french and german, and they cross over tiny bits to English, so sometimes I can read a whole sentence and most of the time I understand nothing at all. I wondered if they were as close as those languages, or more distant. It seems like as close seems to be the answer.
Good headphones will work well for dialogue, allowing you to turn up the volume, but what works better in my experience is 3.1 for film and concerts. It separates the voices to the center channel. No soundbar though, those always suck. The downside is it will be bulky.
Steven Spielberg has said in a featurette for the Temple of Doom that it was chinese mandarin Kate Capshaw was learning on set. One cool thing I learned about Roy Chiao was he and his wife migrated to Seattle, Washington from Hong Kong in 1964!
My dad used the bridge scene to encourage me to learn other languages. Specifically mandarin. So everything I was working to is a lie?!?!?!😭😭😭😭 Don't worry guys, I haven't based my Chinese off of this.😁 Though my dad did use this
Just watched the movie for the first time after decades ago (watched as a kid in Asia) I didn't know it was Chinese in Anything Goes. I thought it could be French or German. Now I got some of the phrases like Piao Piao (flowing flowing). I did get the part Short Round said 'they tried to kill me' in Cantonese during the Indian dancers scene. OMG 39 years ago
this scene is set in Shanghai, the French concession but I haven't watched it in a year though there's is almost no or even no French anything. After this scene the rest of the movie is either in Tibet or north India i.e. someplace literally mythic as in fictional But this is totally supposed to be shanghai lol!
i have zero interest in learning/speaking chinese and yet i love ❤️❤️❤️ your videos cause they're so gosh darn entertaining. if i'm not careful i may learn something.
I recall when I watched the opening song of the movie, I thought it was in Mandarin because it certainly wasn't in Cantonese. I do recall some Cantonese spoken by Short Round. I also remember the bridge scene. I didn't know what that was. I only speak Cantonese, Taishanese and Xinhui. I do recall various movies and TV shows where there were a few words here or there spoken by non-Cantonese speakers. It was spoken poorly, so I didn't understand what they said until maybe a minute later when I finally figured it out.
9:04 Sounds like 「小心，拉住繩索」 in Cantonese (but badly). "Chinese" in Hollywood movies and TV shows in 80s and early 90s were mostly Cantonese due to Hong Kong movies influence. Mandarin wasn't a majority up until mid 90s to early 2000s after the opening of Mainland China market.
THANK YOU!! finally found out what language they are speaking. I showed this to a guy who's chinese he thought there was vienamese in the bridge scene i was kinda wondering what he said and what language. So he butchered that scene makes sense he doesn't speak mandarin or cantonese and doesn't understand the pronunciation
hi Jessie! I appreciate the translations but have long wondered what words were exchanged between Lao Che and Indiana immediately after the latter knocks Kao Ken (Ric Young) unconscious - it's about eight minutes twenty seconds into the film
I did some searching and I found this romanization of what shes supposed to be singing in Mandarin. Yi wang de si wa yi kan dao Xing li bian yao la jing bao jin tian zhi dao Anything goes Yi wang yi lu jiu cha zhen mei hao Qing shu shu shua le feng ye ni dao yi dao Anything goes Wan hua chen shi yi yi dao dao Bian hua wei bao bian wei dao Meng huan dong shi da du shi Do shi wei ni fu shao Ze qi wo dui fei hua long qing liao Dong hua dong feng song dao shou yi ding hui bao Anything goes
Thank you for the video. In the "making of" they always say that she sings in Mandarin. But nobody who speaks understand. I think they translate the lyrics somehow and give to Kate without any language training.
ohhh about the 4 cards... I though Short round was saying Si. as in Dead. Say zhou (dead, damn, swear word), or Say ren (dead man, can be used as "Damn" it), pi (cards/playing pieces)
I watched this movies countless times as a kid then didn’t watch it again until recently because of the new Indiana Jones movie coming out. In between the last time I had seen it I learned mandarin and was even married to a Chinese woman and now I watched this and in the opening scene my head was about to explode it was so confusing! Thanks for explaining I wasn’t crazy. (Btw you only watched Death Race in school? My ex got to watch American Pie in middle school!)
I think it would be neat if you reacted to/ga e your thoughts on the Mandarin Chinese used in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. When it was released, I remember tons of people complaining about the actors use of the language, in that film.
It is impressive that the fact of speaking a native language can synthesize the entire culture of that person and identify that of others. It is a higher level of identity in an ancient culture unlike new summarized and synthetic languages such as Esperanto and Newspeak.
Don't know if it matters, but on the soundtrack for "Temple of Doom" it says Anything Goes was sung in Cantonese. I'm sure her accent wasn't perfect though.
It really is too bad that they didn't hire a linguist and dialogue coach of the same caliber as their SFX folks. It's not like they were short on cash. Part of it is that studios take a fairly dim view of their audiences (I'm sure they were totally shocked when Squid Game came out that American audiences were, in fact, more than willing to listen to Korean actors speaking Korean and follow along in the subtitles). Which is just freelance insulting from any angle. That said, if you're not listening for words and just kind of following the flow of the melody, his sentence is comprehensible for American English speakers, because he is essentially just using the exact melody that we'd use for, "Shorty--watch out! Grab a rope!" And since that's what follows, it would confirm it. If I had to take a wild guess, he was given a line written in pinyin with absolutely no coaching, he memorized it, and said it the way he would say it in English. Which turned it into total gibberish, but there was no production aide on set who knew enough to correct it.
6:51 "Cool, now get lost." Well, that was kind of rude 😛 But interesting -- I always wondered about that. The opening song is supposed to take place in Shanghai. For the English lyrics: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-QmRs0FqQW18.html
Kate Capshaw allegedly learned her Chinese lyrics phonetically, considering that doesn't really assist with small tonal differences I could imagine to a native speaker it would be pretty hard to understand.
Every single Chinese person who has watched this movie has told me that the song at the beginning is meant to be Mandarin, but the lady did a terrible job at it.
I think the song is supposed to be Shanghainese since it’s set in 1920’s Shanghai, the character is supposed to be ditzy and not understanding what she’s singing anyway.
I have a question the scene part where Short round runs away from the Dance girls when about to have dinner what does he said? IT captions he says something in Chinese but I want to know why he ran from them was he scared or more like ohh no I better get out of the way its at 1:19:54 if you watch the movie time he says. Please an thank you
I speak Korean (not bragging but will always seem like bragging because I'm non-Korean) and I also don't understand most (not all) other foreigners who speak Korean. It's not our fault ! these languages the pronunciation is so important .. I can not understand Jim Carrey in Yes Man and privately other foreigners I've met. 😅 I ask to just speak english with me ...but then I seem "arrogant" 🤯 I'm Hungarian and I don't get other Hungarians sometimes! speaking fast is not speaking well. I prefer ppl focus more on pronunciation and speak clearly.
Those cantonese dialogues remind me a bit of vietnamese leanguage, those "ngaak1" and "ngo5". Are there any influences? From Chinese to Vietnamese i suppose?
This sort of thing can be really insulting, but there was some effort made I suppose. Infinitely better than the days when actors or comedians would speak in a cod Chinese accent and deliberately talk utter gibberish. Those days seem long behind us, thankfully.
When I watch it, I always thought she was singing in French and not Chinese that’s just me haha I took French in high school but my language if English so idk what she’s saying either :(
Hey jessie its kinda sad and emotional that Indiana jones is a great hero in the movie will you please do crouching tiger hidden dragon in mandarin plz thats my request to you jessie zhang ziyi is my favorite actress Tommy click your biggest fan i love u
