Wayne P. Lammers
Japanese-English Translations
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Subtitling

The very first time I took on a subtitling project, I saw almost immediately why the subtitles I'd seen in Japanese movies had always seemed so inadequate. However noble the translator's intentions, the time and space constraints are often too tight for dialogue lines to be translated in full, let alone with nuance. Even so, I firmly believe that the subtitles in most older films can be significantly improved upon, and I have enjoyed taking up that challenge in a growing number of films being newly retitled for DVD editions or other purposes.

• I cut my subtitling teeth by translating many of the episodes of Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman, shown on the Independent Film Channel and issued on DVD by Home Vision.

• Other films I have subtitled (or contributed to) for new editions include:
  • Kinji Fukasaku's Jingi naki tatakai series ("Battle Without Honor or Humanity")
  • Hideo Gosha's Yami no kariudo ("Hunters in the Dark") and Kage jitte ("Death Shadows")
  • Shohei Imamura's Fukushu wa ware ni ari ("Vengeance is Mine")
  • Kazuo Inoue's Ikite wa mita keredo ("I Lived, but..."; biography and reminiscences of the great director Yasujiro Ozu)
  • Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo Chorus and I was Born but...
  • Keisuke Kinoshita's Yotsuya Kaidan
  • Masaki Kobayashi's Harakiri
  • Akira Kurosawa's Kagemusha and Ran
  • Kenji Mizoguchi's Genroku chushingura ("The Loyal Retainers of the Genroku Era")
  • Ko Nakahira's Kurutta kajitsu ("Crazed Fruit"; written by Shintaro Ishihara)
  • Seijun Suzuki's Nikutai no mon ("Gate of Flesh")

• I also provided subtitles for the DVD edition of the anime series Hyper Police released in 2002-2003.

• Before I took up subtitling for films and TV series, I had the opportunity to translate three scripts from the classical rakugo (comic storytelling) repertoir for a similar purpose: to be projected on screen for English-speaking audience members during U.S. performances by the raconteur Kyoraku San'yutei. The three monologues were Shibahama ("Grass Beach"), Yabuiri ("Apprentices' Holiday"), and Kowakare ("Broken Family").