Cut and Paste Translation/Film

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of Cut and Paste Translations in Film include:

  • Fritz Lang's Metropolis was Macekred originally on its American release, with the American distributor publicly priding themselves on having essentially chopped it up and rewritten it; leading to much of the film being lost for a century... It has now been found.
  • Quite a few of the Godzilla movies, beginning with inserting Raymond Burr into Godzilla: King of the Monsters, but contrary to popular belief, King Kong won in the Japanese and American versions of Godzilla vs. King Kong. The 1954 original is surprisingly excellent in its unadulterated, non-dubbed form. Godzilla 2000 received a Gag Dub from Tri-Star, as the original version was regarded to be slow-paced and dull.
  • Godfrey Ho was infamous for getting cheap, low-budget Hong Kong films, cutting them to ribbons, and inserting new footage featuring Caucasian actors for distribution in the West. Among his films are Ninja Thunderbolt, Clash of the Ninjas, Full Metal Ninja, and Zombie Vs. Ninja (notice a theme?). He's also done it at least once in the other direction, adding new footage using Asian actors to the Cynthia Rothrock vehicle Undefeatable to create the movie Bloody Mary Killer for distribution in China.
  • Woody Allen's What's Up, Tiger Lily? and Steve Oedekerk's Kung Pow!: Enter the Fist are what happens when the Cut and Paste Translation is combined with the Gag Dub and played entirely for comedy.
  • Master with Cracked Fingers was a 1979 film cut together from different early Jackie Chan films, as a means to cash in on his rising fame. It primarily took footage from the little-seen 1973 film Little Tiger of Canton, but featured several newly-filmed scenes with a double playing Jackie's character (badly disguised with a blindfold).
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