I don’t understand. Cantonese is such a beautifully lyrical language and Mandarin all swishy and staccato ... but that’s beside the point. It seems dubbed, not delivered in Mandarin? Is this a common practice? It’s very distracting because the audio mix sounds strange and unrealistic.

hmmm ... I thought Twitch people knew stuff.

I noticed the same thing in “All About Love” with Charlene, Charlie, and Andy ... something’s up that us neophytes need some education on. Guess this ain’t the place for it.

where and how did you watch Rule #1?
you mentioned in your subject heading that it’s dubbed, then mentioned it’s not delivered in Mandarin, guess we’re confused :D.

Both are DVDs with one language track, English and Chinese Subs. What I mean by dubbed is they both have that spaghetti western thing going on where the mouth movements (the delivered) don’t quite match the audio, which to my ears is Mandarin. It also seems like some, if not all of it,  doesn’t sound like the person I’m watching would sound like the voice I hear. (Anthony Wong Chau-Sang in All About Love sounds comical) I’m assuming these are Cantonese speaking Hong Kong actors that “act” their parts in Cantonese and then guessing they (or other voice actors) overdub it in Mandarin to reach the larger mainland audience. Rule may be a bootleg, but I can’t imagine bootleggers dubbing a movie, and then when I watched All About Love it was the same spaghetti western thing. I’ve googled the hell out of this and found little. One source suggested Hong Kong has too much ambient noise to actually record actors while they act (!!) and that ALL audio was done post-production .... and a trailing note suggested it’s not unusual to have voice actors do the voice over parts in Mandarin and it is a trend that started ten years ago when HK returned to China.

Do Andy, Shawn, Charlene, Charlie, etc., even speak Mandarin? And to any one who’s seen the films, what language was the audio track?

I watched Rule #1 in a theatre, and it was in a Mandarin track. But that’s because in Singapore, the “speak Mandarin campaign” has eradicated all chinese dialects from the media. So we have it in Mandarin instead, and undoubtedly, these versions are dubbed.

DVDs here on the other hand, could be released in the Mandarin track and in some cases, comes with the Cantonese track as well. Don’t ask me why the double standards, but such is the situation here for as long as I have lived

So yes, when I watched it, the Hong Kong actors were mouthing their words in Cantonese, while the Singaporeans could be doing so in Mandarin, and then having their voices dubbed for whichever market it will be screened at.

I believe the folks you mention do speak Mandarin to a certain degree, though they may not be proficient or hitting the correct diction each time. But I guess different markets call for different track requirements, and with Pan-Asian/Chinese collaborations, it’s becoming too common to be disturbed by it.

For example, in Benny Chan’s Connected which was screened here in Mandarin, Louis Koo was obviously speaking in Cantonese (and having his voice dubbed), but we get Mandarin as spoken by Taiwan’s Barbie Hsu, undubbed.

That shed’s some light on things, at least I don’t feel like I am going crazy, thank you.

I’m curious if you’ve seen Oxide Pang’s “Diary” (Mon seung)in a SG theater and if it was Mandarin dubbed. That’s one disk I have that is Charlene and Shawn and it’s Cantonese. And it’s gorgeous to listen to. Or any other Pang Bros film. Koma? I’m sure there are many others ... I guess I’m just looking for some confirmation that there are indeed films with TWO audio tracks, or if they are produced in one language or the other. I want to get to the bottom of this!

Have you seen the other film I mentioned, “All About Love”? That’s another single language track that seems mostly in Mandarin (parts sounded Japanese to me, but that’s probably part of the film). I would love to have both these films in Cantonese.

Or what about “In the Mood for Love”? Yikes! Do you know if they ran that in SG theaters with a Mandarin audio track?

Sorry that I’ve got my britches all on fire here but this really bothers me. Dubbing is dubbing and it’s all bad. I don’t care if it is “Chinese” to “Chinese” ... I’m somewhat new to Asian cinema and this is an unwelcome hurdle.

So ... in a nutshell ... whaddaya think? 

Try collecting early nineties’ Chinese cinema, and notice that even the Cantonese track is badly dubbed!
Some DVDs have me swapping soundtracks, wondering what the hell the original langusge was (or was supposed to be).

In case anybody cares, when I ripped this I was able to choose between Audio tracks, Cantonese and Mandarin. Cool! What a relief.