Last weekend on our regular movie night at home, I introduced my wife to one of my favourite romantic films ever, the French film Amelie, my wife has partial hearing loss so I knew suggesting a film with subtitles would not be ruled out by her, but does it rule you out? I recall seeing the film at the cinema thanks to free tickets from a newspaper promotion and seeing numerous people walk out once realising the film wasn’t in English
Growing up, I recall watching and loving a show called Monkey, but having seen recently have no idea why as it was so badly dubbed as subtitles would have made it a better viewing experience for me now I am a little ( A lot =) older and wiser
It is a shame if you avoid subtitled films as a lot of the latest trends coming to cinema have originated elsewhere, the biggest example of them all being Horror, Japan leading the way with the terrifying Ringu remade here as the Ring but to nowhere near as good and the same as happened with US remakes of The Eye, Dark Water and The Uninvited which was a remake of a Tale of Two sisters, more recently Spanish Zombie horror Rec has had the remake treatment in Quarantine starring Jennifer Carpenter from TV hit Dexter
Not into Horror, how about fantasy, Guillermo Del Toro known for his big Hellboy, Mimic, Blade II and Pacific Rim films has also given us much smaller but as breathtaking films such as Cronos, The Devil’s backbone and the stand out Pan’s Labyrinth
Love your action films, recent remakes Taxi was based on the French quadrilogy of the same named films and the late Paul Walker’s Brick Mansions was a remake of District 13
Of course I don’t know about you but myself and most of my friends first experience of subtitles came from the world of Martial Arts and it still is a pioneer bringing us stars such as Jackie Chan, Jet Li and more recently Tony Jaa, although none of his film choices have made the same impact as his incredible debut Ong Bak
However 2 subtitled films stand out for me above all the rest and amazingly they are directed by a Welshman, the fantastic double bill of the Raid 1 and 2
There are subtitled films for every genre of film, from those above to documentaries and comedies so all I am saying is give them a chance you might enjoy what you see
What do you think of subtitles films? Do you have a favourite, let me know, I’d love to hear from you
