Yahoo Movies The most bizarre movie title translations
What the heck is His Powerful Device Makes Him Famous?
The art of translating movie titles is yet to be mastered in all corners of the globe it seems, with English-language releases proving impossible to nail down into something concise, coherent and digestible.
Whether it's Chinese marketers spoiling a classic M. Night Shyamalan twist in one fell swoop; the French trying to explain The Matrix at its most basic — behold The Young People Who Traverse Dimensions While Wearing Sunglasses — or Spain comparing Vin Diesel to a "super-tough kangaroo" in family comedy The Pacifier, titles are far less nuanced (and often utterly bizarre) when put into unnatural hands.
Here are the 10 stupidest translations.
One Night Big Belly
Although Judd Apatow's 2007 comedy Knocked Up opts for a derogatory distillation of its concept — Seth Rogen's Ben and Katherine Heigl's Alison conceive a child during a one night stand — China's infantilising translation One Night Big Belly removes any grain of humour.
He's a Ghost!
Trap director Shyamalan first began stretching his now-lampooned twist-ending muscles with 1999's The Sixth Sense, in which Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) spends the whole movie psycho-analysing Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment) only to realise he's one of the kid's undead visions.
That's two in two for China, which cut straight to the point with its He's a Ghost! title.
The Teeth from the Sea
Adapted from Peter Benchley's novel of the same name, Jaws was Steven Spielberg's ticket to Hollywood superstardom, but you could argue that the French sold it a little more poetically.
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The Teeth from the Sea pulls us into an era of whacky monster movies, like Creature from the Black Lagoon or The Thing from Another World, although Jaws couldn't be further from those horrors. To be a fly on the wall in Monaco's cinemas when the great white eats young Alex Kintner.
The Boy Who Drowned in Chocolate Sauce
Tim Burton's un-loved interpretation of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory received a rather impersonal refresh over in Denmark.
The Boy Who Drowned in Chocolate Sauce does acknowledge the delicious confectionary, yet there's an inaccurate suggestion of actual death in there.
If You Leave Me, I Delete You
The title of Michel Gondry's topsy-turvy sci-fi masterpiece, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, originates from Alexander Pope's 1717 poem Eloisa to Abelard.
However, the movie's Italian distributors demonstrated no interest in that at all; plucking out a rather brutalist translation for their audiences that attempts to at least allude to its bleak storyline.
His Powerful Device Makes Him Famous
Another bizarre depiction from the shores of China is Paul Thomas Anderson's His Powerful Device Makes Him Famous.
This is of course Boogie Nights — a considered classic in the West — and follows Mark Wahlberg's fledgling pornstar Dirk Diggler, whose considerable manhood really does attract the spotlight.
This Hit Man Is Not as Cold as He Thought
Natalie Portman crushes it as 12-year-old Mathilda in Luc Besson's Léon: The Professional; after her family is wiped out, she's taken in by Jean Reno's killer-for-hire and melts his defences.
And so, in China, it's a case of This Hit Man Is Not as Cold as He Thought.
A Twin Seldom Comes Alone
1998's remake of 1961's The Parent Trap, which is directed by the great Nancy Meyers and stars Lindsay Lohan in a dual role, was given the Raymond Chandler treatment over in Germany.
A Twin Seldom Comes Alone loses that playful Disney innocence plastered all over Lohan's face and comes out sounding more like a detective mystery, don't you think?
Dimwit Surges Forth
We think the Thai translators were a little bit harsh on The Waterboy here. Adam Sandler's dimwit does indeed surge forth in the sports comedy - by becoming a hilariously effective American football player - but mama's boy Bobby Boucher is just too damn pure for this world. He deserved better.
Mysterious Murder in Snowy Cream
China absolutely knocked it out of the park with the Coen brothers' cult classic crime thriller Fargo.
The only semblance of connection Mysterious Murder in Snowy Cream has to this 'true story' is the death-splashed snow of Minnesota, which becomes the prime focus of Frances McDormand's police chief Marge Gunderson.
