Wairudo Supeedo

Veilside cars from Wairudo Supeedo 3

Somewhere in Japan there are guys that sit in their offices and say, "hmm, what kind of ridiculous movie titles can we come up for the next Hollywood flick that reaches our shores"?

The Fast and the Furious was not an exemption as it was labled "Wild Speed" pronounced Wairudo Speedo in Japan. The new Tokyo Drift is naturally called "Wild Speed 3". Not that the Fast and Furious is a great name or anything.

This has happened in Japan since foreign films have been around in Japan. Recently, I think the fact that the Japanese have been getting used to English words in general have helped the situation a bit. They just use the "katakana" letters to phonetically describe the title. "Misson Impossible" would be "misshon imposhiburu". You think that is bad, it is worse when the Japanese movie distributors try to come up with the J names themselves. Because some are just plain aweful.


The 1981 CHARIOTS OF FIRE was the "The Burning Runner(translated in Japanese)"
When I came back to Japan as a kid my friend asked me if I had seen, "Michi Tono Sougu". I said I hadn't and was left out of a conversation. Later I found out he was talking about "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". "Micho tono sougu" means "encountering the unknown" in Japanese. How would I had known?
My favorite still must be a "Gentleman and an Officer" which was released as "Aito seishun no tabidachi". It literally means, "Journey of love and youthtime spring".
FORREST GUMP still cracks me up. It was called "Ichigo Ichie" which is a 4 letter Japanese proverb that means "Treasure every meeting, for it will never recur".

Beautiful, but I wish they had just stuck to simply calling it "Fohresuto Gampu"...
You decide which is better.