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Keanu Reeves speaks Chinese


skylee

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I've just seen the film "The Day The Earth Stood Still" 地球停轉日. There is a part in which Keanu Reeves meets with a Chinese old man (another alien) and they speak Chinese. The old man's Chinese is not great. And the star tries very hard to speak it right (there are 3 or 4 lines). He has tones, and the pronunciation is not all that bad. But personally I found it hard to have to listen to what they said. (Maybe western audience feels the same when they have to listen to Chinese actors' English. :mrgreen: )

I like Keanu Reeves, but the film is just so-so.

Anyone else seen the film? Any comments on the Chinese? :)

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Never heard him speak Chinese in another movie (and haven't seen this one either). But I agree, he probably just learned the bare minimum.

When I saw the thread title I thought he actually spoke Chinese. I think Reeves is part Chinese (quarter or so), so it could have been possible.

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He most likely learned the lines phonetically. An actor should be able to do that without trouble.

For example, Gong Li learned all her English (and Spanish) lines for Miami Vice phonetically. And there were many. I think that Shu Qi did the same for Transporter.

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I recently saw a Chinese-American film Ping Pong Playa which has a foreigner who does a good job with the pronunciation, but he just talks way too slow. The other characters speak very clear (Taiwan?) Mandarin. (the film's in English but the older generation Chinese always speak Mandarin to each other and the young people) BTW if you get a chance to see it, I think you'll appreciate it if you've lived in China - it's low on art but high on laughs. :mrgreen:

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I think in Firefly and Serenity they just didn't really care - which is fair enough as a) a fraction of their audience would notice and B) how do we know how Chinese will be spoken in the future anyway? And for that matter, perhaps Keanu was speaking some odd alien dialect. . .

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