Xin
Once a friend complained to me that he felt at a disadvantage compared with his Korean friends when talking about movies with other international students in English. His Korean friends could immediately get the idea that people were talking about the movie “The Bourne Identity”, while he couldn’t when hearing the name of the movie. And he didn’t, for a single second, relate the name “The Bourne Identity” with the movie, even though he had seen it before. Only after others mentioned the cast and the plot did he realize that “That’s the movie you guys are talking about”.
I know it may sound a bit weird that he had seen the movie but he was unable to recognize it from the name. But the reason lies in the translation. “The Bourne Identity” was translated into “谍影重重” in Chinese, which is one of the best example of English-Chinese free translation. “谍” means espionage; “影”means shadow; “重重” means that there is layer upon layer. So put together, this four characters create a very poetic and vivid scene that there are many different identities of the main character. However, for my friend who didn’t know the English name of the movie, it can be difficult to tell that “The Bourne Identity” and “谍影重重” refer to the same thing.
