It was not until August 28 this year, though, that the film received a full release in mainland theaters. Close scrutiny of changes such as cuts or digital alterations to foreign films in order to secure market entry is routine; with an import as beloved and long-awaited as this, it was especially intense. Criticism of the officially approved "dragon seal" version has focused primarily on its Chinese-language subtitles, particularly their treatment of homosexuality and its dilution of the film’s key theme of "institutionalization." The essay translated below, by commentator Li Yuchen, explains the changes, the problems with them, and their implications. In an apparent attempt to evade keyword scans, it was posted on WeChat as a series of two dozen text images, and its title writes the potential trigger word 同性恋 tóngxìngliàn ("homosexual") as "同x恋." The post currently remains online. Li argues that the subtitles alternately judge and erase gay identity, and that the narrowing of "institutionalized" to "cage-tamed" is still more pernicious because it attempts to drain the film of its potential political resonance in China. "They didn’t import ‘The Shawshank Redemption,’" Li writes. "They screened it inside Shawshank Prison." But Li cites the reversal of infamously absurd changes to the movie "Fight Club" as evidence that Chinese audiences have room to push back: "The line is elastic, not a divine mandate. If you pull it hard enough, it moves."
Film criticism • Subtitles • One word
People Who Are Different
“The Shawshank Redemption” hit Chinese theaters for the first time.
In the film, that word [同性恋 tóngxìngliàn, meaning homosexual] was translated into Chinese as “people who are different.”
A film about freedom had to cut a slice off its tongue in order to be allowed in.
Full article about 4,000 characters—saving images is recommended
1.
Just For Fun
“The Shawshank Redemption” came out 32 years ago, but on August 28 this year, it had its first proper cinematic release in China. What’s the movie about? A guy who gets sent to prison for a crime he didn’t commit, spends 19 years tunneling through a wall bit by bit, crawls through 500 yards of sewage pipe, and stands in the rain with his arms outstretched.
The whole world knows that this is a movie about freedom. It’s been ranked at number one on Douban for 20 years with some three million ratings. Who among us hasn’t gotten a bit emotional late at night, watching that scene with him in the rain with his arms aloft?
Right. Now it’s in theaters. The audience is seated, the lights go down, and the subtitles appear onscreen.
Four Altered Translations
“Homosexual” [同性恋, tóngxìngliàn] is translated in the theatrical cut as “people who are different.”
“Queer”—in the context of the film, a homophobic slur—is translated as “pervert.”
“Institutionalized” [formerly translated into Chinese as 体制化 tǐzhìhuà] is translated as “cage-tamed” [牢笼驯化 láolóng xùnhuà].
In the line “It might as well have been in Chinese” (originally meaning “it was as illegible to me as Chinese”), “Chinese” has been scrubbed out and changed to “celestial script.” [i.e. gibberish]
They’re Showing “The Shawshank Redemption” Inside Shawshank Prison
When I got to that bit, I did laugh out loud. But then my heart dropped.
Think about it: there’s a film about how a man is locked up, worn down, and crawls out, and it had to cut a slice off its tongue in order to get into China.
Andy chipped away at the wall for 19 years. The subtitle editors chipped away at the dialogue for two hours. The same tool working in opposite directions: two little hammers tapping away independently.
Now that’s what they call performance art. That’s meta.
They didn’t import “The Shawshank Redemption”: they screened it inside Shawshank Prison.
2.
The “Institutionalized” Cut
This is the cruelest cut, because no one’s complaining about it.
Everyone’s mad about the change to “people who are different,” but “cage-tamed” is even worse. The speech about Old Brooks is the crux of the whole film:
These walls are funny. First you hate them, then you get used to them. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them. That’s institutionalized.
The whole force of that word “institution” lies in the fact that it’s not just about prison. It means a system, an establishment, a work unit, an organization, the “higher-ups,” the “relevant departments,” or “sorry, my hands are tied.”
The prison here is just a metaphor, a a catch-all standing in for everything that turns people into objects.
Shoving the metaphor back into its cage
If you translate “institutionalized” as “cage-tamed,” you’re saying: “Sorry, what we’re talking about here is that prison, those iron bars.” Nothing to do with anything else, nothing to do with you, or your work unit, or thirty years of being too scared to say “no” to your boss.
In translation theory, that’s called “flattening.” In political theory, it’s called “castration.”
The sharpest part of the whole film’s script is cut off at a stroke, [its meaning] changed to “he’s inside” from “you’re inside too.”
So now, you’re just watching someone else’s story. When the movie’s over, you can applaud, leave the theatre, and punch the clock as usual tomorrow.
Before Old Brooks hanged himself, he carved “Brooks was here” into one of the rafters. These subtitles carved something, too: “cage-tamed,” inscribed by all those feigning slumber.
The problem is attitude, not ability
Side note: those subtitles refer to the original’s “500 yards” as “500 meters,” and “half a mile” as “half a kilometer.” [This change actually papers over an error in the original film.]
See?
They didn’t miss a single place where changes were required, but they cut corners everywhere they shouldn’t have.
This tells you what’s going on. Someone incompetent would have made errors across the board, but in this version, some errors were precisely targeted, while everywhere else, they couldn’t be bothered.
This level of precision takes professional skill, and an even higher level of political consciousness.
3.
The Word “Pervert”
This is no mistake; it’s straight out of official documents.
Red uses the word “queer” in the context of foul-mouthed banter among a group of male prisoners in 1947 about the prison’s incoming “fresh meat,” one of whom “looks like a queer.” [Editor’s note: Li’s recollection is inaccurate; the word appears with reference to the prison’s resident “bull queers.”]
This was the kind of vulgarity they used back then. It’s crude, but it’s spoken by a character in a movie, a Maine convict in 1947.
Some people say translating it as “pervert” is just a matter of translator’s license. Nope.
If you translate it as “sissy,” “pansy,” or “fairy,” that’s translation. That’s reproducing the character’s tone. If you translate it as “pervert,” that’s passing judgment.
The former are the character’s speech; the latter is putting institutional language in the character’s mouth.
One Comma
The word “pervert” was not chosen at random.
Article 8 of a 2017 industry code governing online audiovisual content listed things that should be cut or changed as follows:
Showing and displaying abnormal sexual relations or behavior, such as incest, homosexuality, sexual perversion, sexual assault, sexual abuse, sexual violence etc.
“Homosexuality, sexual perversion.” Note the comma.
See, a perfect match. That subtitle isn’t a translation slip, it’s the system echoing itself. There’s an official document that they’re following, word for word.
50 Years’ Effort, Walked Back with One Comma
In 1997, the crime of “hooliganism” was dropped from the Criminal Law, and homosexuality was decriminalized.
In 2001, the third edition of the Chinese Classification and Diagnostic Criteria of Mental Disorders conditionally removed homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses, so it was no longer classed as a disease.
These two steps took fifty years of effort to achieve.
Then in 2017, a single comma in an industry association’s code reversed them both.
The law spent 20 years ushering it out the door; a single comma in a single rule invited it back in and gave it a seat at the head of the table.
So don’t talk to me about “declining translation quality.” This isn’t about quality. This is someone deciding on your behalf that there are people in the world who don’t deserve a name.
4.
“People Who Are Different”
The most poisonous phrasing in the Chinese language.
I’ve thought a lot about this phrase. The genius of it is that it sounds so friendly.
It’s not abusive. It even has something of a progressive ring to it: a bit of diversity, a bit of inclusiveness, a bit of “respecting differences.” It’s like a neighborhood committee auntie coming over clutching her enamel mug to smooth things over, tutting: "Aiya, we’re all people, aren’t we, and folks are all pretty much the same. So how about we agree not to use that word again, okay?"
That’s what makes it so poisonous.
If someone uses a slur against you, at least you know you’re being insulted. Renaming you erases you from the list, and slaps a smiley-face sticker on you in the process.
There’s "Us" and Then There’s "You People"
Stigmatization at least acknowledges that you exist. "People who are different" doesn’t even grant you that much.
You have no name, you’re just "different."
Different from whom? Different from "normal people."
That phrase hides an unspoken "Us," and a "You" that can’t be spoken.
Confucius said "If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things." Officials have been quoting the old fellow on this for two thousand years, always to legitimize themselves, not to legitimize anyone else.
We’ve been deleting words almost as long as we’ve been reading them.
In "1984," Orwell created "Newspeak." He said the final aim of Newspeak was not to corrupt your speech, but to prevent you from even forming the thought—because the word that bore it had been scrubbed from the dictionary.
If you want to rebel, but the word "freedom" isn’t in the dictionary, what kind of rebellion can you incite?
Chinese people have a tradition of this art going back long before Orwell: naming taboos, of course. [Under China’s imperial-era naming taboos, characters that were part of the Emperor’s given name had to be avoided elsewhere.] Guanshiyin had to become Guanyin [from 观世音 to 观音], and the Ministry of the People had to become the Ministry of Households [from 民部 Mínbù to 户部 Hùbù] because of Li Shimin [李世民, the second Tang emperor]. Even the first lunar month had to be read as Zhēngyuè instead of Zhèngyuè [征月 instead of 正月], because of Ying Zheng [嬴政, China’s first emperor].
Chinese people have been deleting words almost as long as we’ve been reading them.
The Ancients Spoke More Courageously Than We Do
The Han emperor Ai was napping with Dong Xian one afternoon. Dong Xian was lying on Ai’s sleeve, so to avoid waking him, Ai drew his knife and cut the sleeve off. This is where the Chinese term "cut sleeve" [like the terms that follow, a reference to homosexuality] came from.
Mizi Xia ate half a peach, and gave the other to Duke Ling of Wei [卫]: thus, "sharing a peach."
The King of Wei [魏] and Lord Longyang were fishing when Lord Longyang began to cry, explaining that he feared he would be thrown back like the little fish he caught first: thus, "Longyang’s ardor."
There’s a whole pile of Ming and Qing writing on this, like "Cap and Hairpin," "Fragrant Essences of Spring," and "A Precious Mirror for Ranking Flowers," all written plainly, without hiding a thing. In "The Dream of the Red Chamber," Red Inkstone comments gleefully on the section about Bao Yu and Qin Zhong, and no one ever called Qin Zhong a "person who is different."
Our dictionary is thinner than the Han Dynasty one.
5.
Ontological Law-enforcement
In January 2022, a certain platform started streaming Fight Club. The original ending features two people standing hand in hand, watching buildings collapse one after another. There are no falling buildings in the platform’s version, just this white text on a black screen:
Police swiftly figured out Tyler’s whole plan in time to prevent the explosions, and apprehended all the criminals. Tyler was committed to a mental hospital for treatment, and discharged in 2012.<\blockquote>
I applaud that caption, really. I’ve never read a funnier bit of Chinese in all my life.
First, a movie criticizing consumerism is transformed into a propaganda film showcasing public security work. This revision deserves an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Second, **Tyler is a figment of the main character’s imagination, my friends.**
—
**The Line is a Rubber Band**
Taking someone’s hallucination into custody and bringing it to justice, sending it off to a mental hospital, and then telling us when it was discharged … this isn’t just censorship, this is **ontological law-enforcement**. They’re not just regulating film, they’re regulating metaphysics.
The whole world laughed at this for a week. Afterwards, with public pressure mounting, **the original ending was restored.**
**So you see, restoration is possible.**
This point is extremely important. Always remember: **the line is elastic, not a divine mandate. If you pull it hard enough, it moves.**
—
**There’s More**
**In February 2022**, “Friends” reappeared on several domestic platforms. In that 30-year-old sitcom, the [whole thread about Ross’s ex-wife being a lesbian was cut or changed](https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2022/02/the-one-where-chinese-censors-target-lgbtq-content-in-friends/); they even gave dirty jokes different meanings in translation. A family show from the final decade of the previous century was whittled down, in 2022, into a children’s fairy tale. At the time, the general verdict could be summed up as: **“laughably backward.”**
**In 2018**, “Call Me By Your Name” was withdrawn without explanation from a certain film festival. That year, a certain platform announced a clean-up of related content，which led to the hashtag \#IAmGay breaking into the Hot Search list. After two days, the platform backed down. **Another rubber band.**
**In 2019**, [“Bohemian Rhapsody” was imported](https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2019/03/china-censors-lgbt-references-in-bohemian-rhapsody/), with Freddie Mercury edited down into “a somewhat lonely male singer.”
—
**Tacit Understanding**
In the last few years, “socialist brotherhood” has become a respectable term. A couple of guys are obviously an item; the subtitles insist they’re just good friends; the audience insists “Okay, we get it, we get it,” and everyone plays along on cue.
This is a kind of doublethink that the whole population takes part in: **you know, I know, you know I know, but no one says it out loud.**
Orwell coined the term “doublethink.” We call it “tacit understanding \[literally ‘heart reflected without declaration’\],” a rather beautiful expression.
OK, now join the dots and think about “people who are different” again.
**It’s not a momentary slip of the pen.** **It’s a standardized unit rolling off an assembly line.**
—
**6**
**I’m Not Blaming the Translator**
He’s probably just a low-paid freelancer who was handed a word list by someone higher up and told what needed changing. If he doesn’t do it, he won’t get paid, and if he doesn’t get paid, he can’t make this month’s rent.
Is he supposed to die on this hill? Why should he? He’s no Andy, hiding a pickaxe in the wall for 19 years. **He’s just someone doing a job.**
A former fansub group veteran put it plainly: “Back in 2018, there was no money involved in subtitling groups. It was purely a labor of love. Back then, I had the enthusiasm and the time, but **I don’t do it anymore: I’m tired.**”
Listen to that last sentence: so simple, but so heavy. **That sentence carries more weight than this whole diatribe of mine.**
—
**What Time It Is**
**An era’s best translation is done for free, underground, for the love of it.**
**The most official translation in this era is done for money, shown in cinema chains,** **and changes “homosexual” to “people who are different.”**
When both of these things are true, you know what kind of an age you’re living in.
—
**No Villain, But The Wall Keeps Getting Higher**
It needs to be said: **On an assembly line, each person just carries out their own little step in the process, until a film about freedom becomes this thoroughly tamed, and all the while, no one feels they’ve done anything wrong.**
“I followed the rules,” says the censor. “I delivered what was asked,” says the translator. “Without these changes, it wouldn’t have gotten through the door,” says the distributor. “Better to be allowed in than not,” says the audience.
Everyone has their reasons, everyone is innocent, and that’s how the wall gets built.
That’s the real meaning of “institutionalized.”
**It’s not that there’s a villain—there isn’t one—but the wall keeps getting higher.**
The word they most needed to translate correctly **was the one word they had to translate wrong.**
—
**7**
**For Those Two Minutes, There Were No Subtitles At All**
Andy did something stupid. He locked himself in an office, commandeered the PA system, and for two minutes, broadcast a recording of two women singing “The Marriage of Figaro” so that everyone in the prison could hear it. No one in the prison understood Italian.
Red said, “I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don’t want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. \[I like to think they were singing about something\] so beautiful it \[can’t be expressed in words, and\] makes your heart ache \[because of it\].”
It cost Andy two weeks in solitary. After he got out, someone asked him if it had been worth it. He said it was. He said music was “in here,” pointing to his head, and then to his heart. “They can’t get that from you.”
You can change the subtitles, change the endings, change “homosexual” to “people who are different,” arrest a hallucination, send it off to a mental hospital, and then organize its release. You can do all of these things. You *have* done all of these things.
But you couldn’t change those two minutes.
**Because for those two minutes, there were no subtitles to change.**
—
**This Is What You Call a Backup**
For 32 years, how many people have leaned on this film to get themselves through their own hard times?
Now these people are sitting in the theater, looking at that phrase on the silver screen, **silently translating it back to themselves.**
**A subtitle can be changed,** **but the original line is still etched in millions of people’s minds.**
**That’s what you call a backup.** **That’s something you can’t erase.**
—
I have one final question.
You translated “homosexual” as “people who are different.”
**Now how do you plan to translate “people”?** [**[Chinese](https://chinadigitaltimes.net/chinese/731357.html)**]