How to Buy a Voice Dubbed Foreign Film

Dubbed films hark back to the day when it was easier to simply make a second voice track than add words to each frame. Today, dubbing strikes many as strange and a bit awkward. But for others dubbing is a part of cinema culture and history. Follow these steps to buy dubbed foreign films to enjoy a special feature of cinema culture.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Buy older foreign films. Many older films were produced in an age when dubbing was the standard method of translating a film from another language. Foreign films from the 1930s and 1940s were dubbed, for better or worse, and these editions are still available on modern media.

2. Look for dubbing genres. Kung Fu movies are famous for their often strange and unsynchronized dubbing. Part of the lure of the genres that used dubbing is the hilarity of watching intense visual scenes in which characters' lips are clearly mismatched with the voice track.

3. Buy films from dub-loving countries. India, for instance, is crazy about dubbing. You can find hundreds of "Bollywood" films dubbed into English or, conversely, you can even buy American-made films that have been dubbed into Hindi or one of many other Indian languages.

4. Find filmmakers who appreciate dubbing. Woody Allen took a Japanese spy film and dubbed it in such a way that it completely changed the plot of the film. Creative filmmakers such as Allen have long used dubbing to experiment with adapting or altering foreign films for English-speaking audiences.

Tips & Warnings

• Dubbed versions of foreign films are a good choice for people who have difficulty reading subtitles.