Intertitle translation of Chinese silent films

Abstract

Abstract There is a misconception that film translation did not exist in China before 1949. The paper argues that the translation of Chinese silent films was vibrant in the 1920s and the early 1930s. Most of the extant copies of Chinese films from that period have bilingual intertitles. Chinese film companies have two purposes in translating their productions: the potential profit obtained from international audiences, and the desire to change the negative image of Chinese people portrayed in Hollywood films and project a positive image of China. Driven by these two objectives, Chinese film companies placed considerable emphasis on translation quality and hired both Chinese translators and foreign translators to translate their productions.