It’s a danger well known to international brands, who have to be extremely careful so that their USA best selling cleaning product doesn’t translate as ‘dog dirt’ in Finnish or something.
However, movie makers are not so lucky and here are 10 of the worst translated movie titles :
1. Airplane : Translated into German as ‘The Unbelievable Trip In A Wacky Aeroplane’
2: Leon : How can anyone mistranslate this. It’s someone’s name. But the Chinese decided on ‘is Hit Man Is Not As Cold As He Thought’ instead.
3: Home Alone: This became ‘Mom, I Missed The Plane’ in France.
4: Lost In Translation : It was inevitable perhaps that this movie title has been mistranslated. The Portuguese called it ‘Meetings and Failures in Meetings’. Sounds fascinating. Sure to be a big hit.
5: You Only Live Twice: Personally, I think the Japanese translation : ’007 Dies Twice’ sounds a more interesting prospect.
6: Jaws : The French went for ‘The Teeth from the Sea’ for this ’70s classic.
7: Cruel Intentions : Became ‘Sex Intentions’ in France.
8: The Horse Whisperer: Ended up as ‘Held by Wind in Montana’ over in Japan.
9: The Matrix : This has got to be my favourite. The French called this sci-fi extravaganza ‘The Young People Who Traverse Dimensions While Wearing Sunglasses’, which is literal, if nothing else.
10: Pretty Woman : Can anyone confirm this one? Apparently, this was translated into ‘I Will Marry A Prostitute and Save Money’ in China.
I like the last one for some reason… lol
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About the French Matrix supposedly funny translation : I read this translation on many websites, but being French, I can assure you nobody ever called the movie that ! It’s known as “Matrix” over here, simply “Matrix”. (Sorry to spoil the fun but it made French people sound a little dumb didn’t it ?)