Letting the wrong subtitles in!
Man, I'm so glad I held off buying the Blu-Ray transfer for Let the Right One In, the movie that was fifth on my best of 2008 list and one which I think will only get better the more times I see it. The only reason I hadn't is because it is being released on a limited U.K. run in a few weeks and I'm desperate to see it play on the big screen. But for those of you who are seeing the movie for the first time on home video, I must direct you to this horrifying news. A subtitles scandal has plagued the home video release, something that any fan of Miyazaki's anime or Asian movies in general have much complained about over the years. Rob G. at Icons of Fright say the sub standard subtitles translation on his DVD/Blu-Ray transfer "have ruined the film" for him and he is advising people not to buy the Magnoila Home Entertainment issued DVD and Blu-Ray.
"Sure, the basic gist of what the characters were saying was kind of there, but missing completely was the darkhumor, subtleties and character nuances which made the movie so powerful...just about the intent of every single line of dialogue was completely off and ruined the movie".He exhaustively and to great personal effort, posted screengrabs of the offence. I've taken a few images as an example. The first few come from the review copy screener he was sent with the original subtitles, as the director Tomas Alfredson intended.
The original screener attributes that the subtitles were done by Ingrid Eng. (Multiple kudos to Miss Eng for doing an amazing job.) My guess is that in order to re-use them for the American version of the DVD, Magnolia/MAGNET probably had to pay Ingrid again for her services. Rather then do that, perhaps they hired someone else to do the translations for real cheap.That my friends, should be the decision maker for you. If they are giving you a sub-standard product on the cheap, they don't deserve your money. And just hope that somehow, someway you can see this film as it was originally made. God, I really hope the U.K. got a good print of this movie. Jeffrey Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere has heard that the Canadian Blu-Ray/DVD release from Mongrel Media has the original subtitles, so that's the version to buy. Unless of course, you speak Swedish because then it doesn't really matter at all does it?