Possible Chinese lyrics for "Anything Goes" from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom 魔宮傳奇的可能中文歌詞

Описание к видео Possible Chinese lyrics for "Anything Goes" from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom 魔宮傳奇的可能中文歌詞

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I'm surprised that there are far more people interested in this matter than I expected. However, inappropriate/hate comments will be removed without notice. (Seriously, it only takes me like 0.5 seconds to do so.) Who seriously want to pick a fight will get blocked.

I claim no rights for any of the original movie/music materials.

I am still waiting for someone who can sing a cover of this song with my lyrics. (I speak Chinese but I don't sing well.)
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As a native Chinese speaker - I'm Taiwanese - and a former translator myself, also an long-time Indiana Jones movies fan since my childhood, I always wondered that what exactly was Kate Capshaw singing in the beginning of Temple of Doom. I made this out of curiosity, and I love this film since childhood.

The short answer is no one really knows, and this is my best guessing so far, based on several assumptions:

1. the lyrics were, very possibly, a true Chinese adaptation/translation of Cole Porter's original lyrics. Somebody worked for the movie did a pretty good job. (I realized this only after listening to the original song so many times while playing Fallout 4. And before me some people on the Internet already figured out the first line.)

2. Kate Capshaw was singing standard Chinese (so-called Mandarin), not Shanghainese, Cantonese or Manchu language. Apparently She only learned to imitate the pronunciation, and as a westerner who never learned Chinese before, she had a heavy accent and I think she missed several syllables/words.

Eventually I wrote down my own guessing of the Chinese lyrics and (re)translated them back into English. And like I mentioned above, the point of this video is not to criticize Kate Capshaw nor the film. To the main western audience, the Chinese singing is probably just something exotic and not intended to be understood.

Another recent example - Amy Adams, playing a linguist in the 2016 film Arrival, spoke some similarly badly-pronounced Chinese. Amy said she only had two weeks to memorize them. Learning Chinese (or to imitate the pronunciation) is never easy for non-native speakers. Only films intended to attract China's market would hire actors that do speak Chinese. (Robert Downey Jr.'s parody-Chinese lines in Tropic Thunder was actually very, very hilarious. On the other hand, the Asian "drug dealers" didn't do any better with their lines.)

So can Kate do better if she got the chance, and should she? What done is done, but try to think of this a curious study to the past, a byproduct of the shadow of linguistic imperialism and Hollywood whitewashing. An Asian speaking bad English in a western film will surely be scorned.

Many people argues that Kate has no training nor background thus it's not her fault. Indeed - the origin of the problem is that the filmmakers didn't care if the song is authentic enough to Asian audience, and this level of production is no longer acceptable today.

Still, I think the unnamed writer did a decent good job translating lyrics, despite of all things. The effort should not be ignored.

For those who insisted Kate was singing Manchu - virtually no one speak Manchu since the 19th century, and the language's revivalism only started in the post-Mao era. Today only 50 or so people speak Manchu. But I don't think filmmakers care about the difference anyway. I believe Kate is singing in standard Chinese/Mandarin and Harrison Ford might spoke some Cantonese lines.

本影片的歌詞翻譯純屬臆測,基本假設是Kate Capshaw唱的是一般中文 (普通話) 而非北京話/上海話/滿州語。寫歌詞的人很可能真的根據Cole Porter (以及可能Frank Sinatra) 的原歌詞翻譯了內容,只不過Kate的發音很爛而且可能有漏詞。

這支影片也意想不到地吸引了相當數量的仇華白人以及電影的毒粉來抱怨,但反正過度憤怒偏激的會被我用0.5秒的速度當場刪掉。

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Lyrics

以往絲襪一看到心裡便要拉警報,今天知道
In olden days a glimpse of stockings was shocking, but now I know

Anything goes.

以往有作家熟悉美好金詩,時下牛糞眼裡倒一倒
Authors once knew golden poems, but today all you see are garbage/bullshit

Anything goes.

瘋狂世界現已顛倒,照片會一百遍偽造
The mad world has gone upside down, photos would be fabricated a hundred times

他們總忘記大多事情會很可笑;
People always forget how ridiculous most things are;

可惜我雖非他的夢中情人,但我總知道到時一定回報*
Although I'm not his dream lover, I always know knew my wish will eventually be answered

Anything goes.

The last two Chinese lines were mostly guessed because it's very unclear.

Note: someone has recently pointed out that the last two lines matched Frank Sinatra's version. So 他的夢中情人 (his dream lover) may actually be 大情聖 (great romancer) or 大情郎 (great lover) - the syllables are close enough - although both 情聖 and 情郎 are used to describe men, unless Willie Scott was singing from a man's point of view (unlikely).

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