Linguistics, Revisited

After writing my  post on the use of language, I had the privilage of sitting down and watching The Karate Kid and The Karate Kid Part II all the way through for the first time. I know– wow, right? But that’s not the point.

The point is, The Karate Kid Part II was awful with their use of language. I know it may not seem like it, but it was pretty bad when you think about it. To make it worse, I watched The Last Samurai before The Karate Kid, and The Karate Kid before its sequel.

In The Last Samurai, English was spoken in Japan primarily between Katsumoto and Nathan Algren. Few others in Katsumoto’s village spoke English, so the rest of the dialogue among the samurai village spoke Japanese. It was a rather realistic depiction, if I do say so myself. On the other hand, you have The Karate Kid 2, in which most of the people in Okinawa spoke English for no apparent reason. On top of that, the dialogue between Mr. Miyagi and Sato, which is usually based around Sato’s cultural honor grudge, is in English. The dialogue between Mr. Miyagi and Yukie– also in English. 

Now, I enjoyed all three movies very well. In fact, you almost have to overlook the bad dialogue in Part II on account of it being an 80s  movie. But, what you do have is two very good examples of how and how not to use language in similar situations. If you wanna do it right, do it like The Last Samurai. If you don’t really care, Part II style is for you.

~ by omfgjaron on 28 September 2008.