Seven Pounds (with Will Smith)

I would definitely recommend seeing this movie (twice): Seven Pounds (with Will Smith). In Japanese it’s 7?????. Nanatsu No Okurimono. The DVD and Blu-ray disc went on sale in Japan on September 2, 2009.

It’s not as fast-paced as the trailer would have you believe, and Will Smith has a pained expression on his face for most of the movie, but if you can get past those things, the film has its rewards. Not the least of which is Rosario Dawson. Or the more cerebral reward of figuring out the English title. I won’t say more.
But my concern about this movie, and the reason I’m posting about it on the SWET blog, is a key subtitling error. (I don’t think revealing the dialogue will spoil the movie for first-time viewers.) I’m wondering if it’s a legitimate error, in the sense that the translator hired by Sony Pictures Entertainment (or production) made a mistake, leaving out a “~” to indicate a span between two numbers.
The reason I have to wonder, is that I received the DVD from a friend in July, so it was likely downloaded from a torrent. In the past I’ve watched “fansubbed” videos, and the MO of the fansubber is usually a prominent display of his “name” at the beginning. (I don’t have an example at hand, though.) This DVD didn’t have that and seemed like a legitimate rip (I know, an oxymoron), perhaps from a rental DVD.
Anyway, here’s the dialogue for the scene with subtitles. “W” stands for “Will” and “D” for “Doctor.”

W: Do you have any more..any optimism about Emily
???????????
than you did the other day?
????????????????

D: When..when you’re looking for a donor with a rare blood type
???????????????????
the odds go way down.
???????

W: To what? They go down to..What’s..give me a percentage.
???????????
????

Give me a number!
???????

D: Three? (Shakes head) Five percent?
???????

I…I’m sorry…
?????????
I wish the numbers were higher.
??????

W: Thank you.
??????

(Here’s the video of the scene.)
——-
That subtitle sure looks like “35” to me.
Three to five, not thirty-five!!!
I wonder if Japanese audiences who only read the subtitles will be misled by this mistake. What do you think?

Posted by Richard Sadowsky on 09/14 at 09:49 AM

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