Iron Man

I've watched the movie - "Iron Man" which has been quite the talk lately.

The main character - the billionaire genius Tony Stark is played by the very sexy Robert Downey Jr.
*start screaming*
*aaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!*
(I missed the days of him as Larry in Ally McBeal !!!!!)

Ah well, I'm not here to talk about the movie (it's great btw, you should watch it).
I want to talk about the s-u-b-t-i-t-l-e-s.

As we all know, all the movies are provided with Malay and Mandarin subtitles.
They translate everything from the movie title till the end of the show (exclude the casts and credits of course).

So, we were eating the popcorns waiting for the movie to start.





Bla bla bla bla bla...

Finally.

The title "Iron Man" came out
(after the advertisements and the movie trailers and the beginning of Iron Man).
The words "Iron Man" are big and displayed in the middle of the screen.
Then I look down at the subtitle.


...


...


...


"坚强的男人"







What the hell??

Iron Man = 坚强的男人 ?????

Since when the word "Iron" = "坚强" ??????
So if i want to describe a person as very 坚强,
i should call him/her very 'iron' ????

This is where direct translation comes in useful.
They could have just translate "Iron Man"
as "钢铁人" or "铁人"
which the meaning is so much better and accurate than
"坚强的男人" (and so much shorter).


This reminds me of a movie i watched few years ago.


"The Day After Tomorrow"

Guess what's the malay title for it???









Bingo !!
*applause*



" L U S A "

4 words become 1 word.

Nice.
You have to give them credit for making the title so 'simple'.

Okay, back to Iron Man.

Behind every successful man, there's always a great woman behind him.
In his case, it's the famous Miss Pepper Potts,
which is played by the beautiful Golden Globe and Academy Award-winning actress, Gywneth Paltrow
(wife of Chris Martin, the lead singer of the British rock band, Coldplay).


Again, guess what's her name in Mandarin (in the movie Iron Man)??

"胡椒"




Ya, i know pepper means 胡椒.
But, SERIOUSLY,
do you call a person as "胡椒" ???


"Pepper Potts"
So, i should call her "胡椒 盆s" ????





You tell me.




This leads me to another famous singer in the music industry.

Gwen Stefani.
She's a very very well-known figure, a solo artist and the vocalist of No Doubt.
You can always see her name appearing in newspaper and magazines.

Mandarin newspaper translate everything to mandarin, including titles and names.


So,




Gwen Stefani.
"关 史蒂芬妮"



Gwen = 关
关 = close


So, if you ever name your daughter as 'Gwen',
you can put her mandarin name as "关 ".

E.g. : Gwen Lee ---- 李关 (nice, simple, easy to write and remember)
Thank GOD my parents NEVER named me as 'Gwen'



When you have a daughter which her name is "Gwen",
you can name your other son as "Kyle".



Cause if "Gwen" = "关",
so "Kyle" should be "开 "



Gwen and Kyle, 关 and 开.
Very very very nice combination.