Screenplays in Chinese?

Hi,

Does anybody know if I can get somewhere screenplays (in the electronic form) for 十面埋伏 (House of Flying Daggers), 花木兰 (Lady General Hua Mu-Lan) 虎胆 (Raw Courage)? My Chinese is very poor, so Chinese subtitles don't help much. I'd like to be able to use online tools to find out what the characters are.

If you don't know about screenplays, but know about a Chinese-language forums where I could get an answer, I'd appreciate a pointer too.

Thanks,

Simon

Why not order the DVD of House of Flying Daggers? It has english subtitles...

Yes, I have the DVD. Having English and Mandarin subtitles is not enough, as I don't recognize most characters by sight. I need to be able to look them up online.

The Chinese in "House of Flying Daggers" is stylized and antiquated. The film uses classical expressions which are not used today, while dramatic meaning is contained in obscure poems and chengyu.

Unless you really love the movie, this isn't great for language study. If you like Zhang Yimou try get your hands on his mid-late 1990s stuff. "Happy Times" and "The Road Home" are both great films. Their Chinese basically what you'll hear in China and the films themselves are well-worth watching. "The Road Home" is a personal favourite.

Cheers

Point taken, thanks. However, even modern movies would be rather hard. You don't happen to know where to download scenarios, do you?

Trevelyn,

You said

The Chinese in "House of Flying Daggers" is stylized and antiquated. The film uses classical expressions which are not used today, while dramatic meaning is contained in obscure poems and chengyu.

If the film uses classical expressions no longer in use today, does this mean that many native Putonghua speakers don't understand all that is being said?

This "stylized" way of speaking... can this be compared to some aristocrats speaking a snobby type of English - something that we can understand but won't speak in such a way?

I'm just wondering why a movie would be scripted in a way that may be hard even for native speakers. It seems that many Chinese movies and even TV programs are done this way and I always hear Chinese native speakers telling learners of Chinese "oh no, we don't speak this way; you shouldn't use this for studying."

But because of the immense history of China, many shows and movies are set in past eras and terms such as 大捕头 and 皇上 will inevitably be used . While not used in everyday life, I guess there is a "screen vocabulary" that must be learnt as well in order to enjoy a lot of Chinese movies out there.

Oh, also, just how well versed are modern Putonghua speakers in 成语. Are many used in daily conversation? It seems reasonable that when such short phrases can convey so much information, well, why not use 'em? Just curious.

By the way, I have seen "House of the Flying Daggers." Great movie! Zhang Ziyi is my favourite actress. I thought that it was quite comprehensible except for some words like 今日 instead of 今天 and lots of 之 usage. But I used a lot of PAUSE and REPLAY on my WinDVD player, which I think, by the way, is the best way for learners to watch Chinese movies.

I'm just wondering why a movie would be scripted in a way that may be hard even for native speakers. It seems that many Chinese movies and even TV programs are done this way and I always hear Chinese native speakers telling learners of Chinese "oh no, we don't speak this way; you shouldn't use this for studying."

It is not hard for native speakers. We just don't speak like that. We don't say 為何 and 如何, we say 為甚麼 and 怎樣, etc etc.

But because of the immense history of China, many shows and movies are set in past eras and terms such as 大捕头 and 皇上 will inevitably be used . While not used in everyday life, I guess there is a "screen vocabulary" that must be learnt as well in order to enjoy a lot of Chinese movies out there.

Not just for the screen. You would need them for reading, too. It wouldn't hurt to know what 捕頭 means, would it?

Oh, also, just how well versed are modern Putonghua speakers in 成语. Are many used in daily conversation?

I don't know about Putonghua speakers, but as a Cantonese speaker I use 成語 a lot (we need to use them so that we would make mistakes and we could laugh at each other ).

I've seen references to software that will let you rip subtitles from DVD's into text files, but I don't know if they will work with Chinese Characters.

House of Flying Daggers' subtitles ripped. I'm not sure if the subtitles are in Chinese or English. Give it a try. You'll need to download eMule first.

http://lib.verycd.com/2004/10/20/0000023762.html

I am also looking for any transcripts for Chinese I can get hold of - as I can see they are a rarity. I'll get the script, then the movie.

Are there any in a normal format, not requireing eMule or other funny software?

Which software is used to rip subtitles from a Chinese DVD? I also found some links and full descriptions how to use but there was no reference this supports Chinese characters.

Have you tried it to see what happens? Presumably they'll be in one of the major encodings.

I'm downloading one of the verycd subtitle files now to have a look at it and see what format it is in. Will let you know.

Roddy

Oh, thanks a lot, Roddy. I just found another after rejecting one of the progs -

http://zuggy.wz.cz/dvd.php.

I have some bilingual cartoons, hopefully I could get the sutitles and translate them gradually - e.g. Pinocchio.

Bugger, no luck with download, restarted 3 times!

-- Found a better link for SubRip:

http://www.free-codecs.com/SubRip_download.htm

Also, found another one (VobSub):

http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/VobSub-Download-1698.html

I am subscribed to this thread, please post if you have any luck with verycd.

Will only manage to download but will try out the day after tomorrow - have Chinese class tomorrow. It's getting very late here...

Ok, I've downloaded a couple of .sub files from Verycd, but I can't get them to do anything. I get complete nonsense when I try and open them in a text editor, regardless of encoding. Some website I found (closed Firefox, tabs all gone ) told me that they are image files, but you can convert them to text with VobSub. I couldn't get VobSub to even open them. I can get VobSub to open .srt files, which are text, but I don't have any Chinese ones. I now also have DixVLand and SubTool clogging up my hard drive. Good luck!

若你不和他一起上机 你会后悔的,可能不是今天 也不是明天,但终有一天你会后悔的

No prizes for spotting the film.

This was very easily obtained (opened in notepad) from a .srt file downloaded from verycd. However, as far as I can see, you only find .srt files on foreign films - the Chinese ones all have .sub. files, which I can't yet do anything with.

Thanks, Roddy

I downloaded a Chinese movie script with .srt extension. VobSub is supposed to work with Chinese but I need more time...

EDIT:

It is a combination of the 3 (or the 2) that does the job, I just need to do more investigation when I get a chance:

SubRip, VobSub, SubOCR.

If anyone has done it, please post

Update:

I managed to extract the subtitles from a DVD using SubRip but only as BMP files - heaps of files + a sst file with a list of them, I can view BMP file OK but I'd like to convert this to text.

I also have another format - sup files anda list of them in a srt file. Not sure what can be done with those, I see gibberish if I open them in a text editor, must be binary.

In-built OCR didn't recognose the Chinese characters, so "to text via OCR" didn't work. Do I need to download a matrix file or dictionary file or something? I saw the Chinese characters in a window but it was asking to input each of them manually.

Very frustrated so far. If anyone had luck with this, please post here. I've read through heaps of forums.

You can find Chinese subtitles at http://www.shooter.com.cn/. Enter the title of movie you are looking for in the search box on top of the page.

Here is a .srt format subtitile I downloaded for 十面埋伏. This .srt file, at least, is a simple text file.

This is from the start of the file:

00:00:18,400 --> 00:00:24,400

片名：十面埋伏

3

00:01:04,900 --> 00:01:06,900

刘捕头, 金捕头

4

00:01:07,000 --> 00:01:08,500

属下外出巡视

5

00:01:08,600 --> 00:01:10,000

告辞

6

00:01:18,200 --> 00:01:19,700

又要忙咯

7

00:01:21,200 --> 00:01:23,200

州府限我们十天之内

house.of.flying.daggers.HDTV.720RE.DTS.FANXY@SILU.rar

At this point I'd look at Chinese OCRs - there have been a few posts about these in the computing forum over the years. Also, this guy seems to be doing something similar.

Excellent link, Roddy, thank you! I was looking for subtitles for Pinocchio cartoon in Chinese, found a few, will check which one matches my DVD. Good stuff!

--

That guy (foolip) was at the same stage - ripped the subtitles into image file or they look like screenshots rather. I PM'ed him.