Lost in Translation: English-Language Movies with Puzzling Polish Titles
When released in Poland, English-language films usually receive a translated Polish title. But sometimes these ‘translations’ can barely be called as such, and turn out a little beyond understanding. Take a strange journey with Culture.pl as we look at a number of rather unorthodox Polish translations of English film titles!
We start off with an undisputed classic of peculiar Polish translations of English film titles. For some reason 1994’s highly popular romantic comedy-drama Reality Bites was given the Polish title Orbitowanie bez Cukru which translates as none other than ‘Orbiting Without Sugar.’ In Reality Bites, set in Houston in the 1990s, the character of Lelaina Pierce played by Winona Ryder makes a video documentary about herself and her friends. This documentary consists of little ‘bites’ of reality which are film equivalents of sound bites, hence the title Reality Bites.
But the reason for this title’s Polish translation remains a mystery, as there is definitely no orbiting, with nor without sugar, in this picture. Perhaps the author of the Polish title was inspired by commercials of the sugarless Orbit chewing gum that was popular in 1990s Poland and tried to, quite unnecessarily, somehow link them to the film they were subtitling.
Another classic of unusual Polish titles of English-language movies is undoubtedly Wirujący Seks, the name given to the 1987 blockbuster Dirty Dancing. This provocative Polish title means ‘Whirling Sex’ in English. But while Dirty Dancing, a romantic dance drama set in the 1960s in the Catskill Mountains, does include a couple of love scenes, its main focus is on the dancing of Jennifer Grey’s Frances Houseman and Patrick Swayze’s Johnny Castle. Sure, this dancing may seem sexy or ‘dirty’, but it’s still dancing, not sex. So why the Polish title then? Some say it might’ve been an attempt to draw more viewers to the cinema. After all, sex sells…
Next up we have another major 1980s hit, the action movie Die Hard. It has Bruce Willis playing the policeman John McClane who is caught in the fray as a large number of people inside a Los Angeles skyscraper are taken hostage by terrorists. The Polish title is Szklana Pułapka which translates as ‘Glass Trap’, alluding to the numerous windows in the façade of the high-rise in which the film’s action takes place.
While this Polish title worked very well for the original Die Hard, it was rather intriguingly detached from the subsequent sequels. For instance, Die Hard 2 is set at a not-so-glassy airport but in Polish it’s still titled ‘Glass Trap 2’. Die Hard with a Vengeance unfolds (for the better part) throughout the streets of New York City, but it’s Polish title is ‘Glass Trap 3.’ It becomes increasingly absurd in the fourth film Die Hard 4.0 which takes place across what seems like an entire US state, while the fifth film, A Good Day to Die Hard (not a great title in English either), begs whether the continued insistence of the Polish name Glass Trap has become political commentary on the film’s setting in Moscow. Either way, the Polish title of Die Hard can bring some absolutely delightful confusion to the viewers of this movie’s sequels.
The year 1996 saw the release of the comedy Spy Hard starring Leslie Nielsen as the secret agent Dick Steele. Like many a movie with this celebrated actor, Spy Hard is a parody, one that plays with popular James Bond tropes. It has Dick Steele trying to stop a dangerous villain from taking over the world. Although the movie at hand is a spy film, it’s title is a phonetic wink at the aforementioned Die Hard.
The Polish translation of the title Spy Hard tried to somehow reflect the English original’s wordplay, and came to be known as Szklanką po Łapkach. The phrase szklanką po łapkach sounds quite similar to the expression szklana pułapka which, as mentioned before, is the Polish title of Die Hard. The actual meaning of Spy Hard’s Polish title is ‘Getting Hit on the Hands with a Glass’! This rather absurd Polish title was deemed appropriate for Spy Hard, a picture full of absurd humour.
As in the case of Die Hard, the Polish translation of the title The Hangover worked pretty well for the original film, but not for the sequel. The popular 2009 comedy stars Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis as three buddies who go to Las Vegas for a bachelor party and have a number of crazy adventures while hungover afterwards. In Poland, this movie was called Kac Vegas which is a well-crafted wordplay on the name of the city where the film’s action takes place – in Polish, the word kac means ‘hangover’ and sounds similar to the English pronunciation of ‘Las.’
But Hangover II is set in Bangkok, so the wordplay from the first part’s Polish title doesn’t seem like it should be applied here. That didn’t stop Poland from making the sequel’s name Kac Vegas w Bangkoku which loosely translates as ‘Hangover Vegas in Bangkok’. A little confusing, isn’t it?
The iconic science fiction film The Terminator premiered in 1984. A killer robot (or ‘terminator’) played by Arnold Schwarzenegger arrives from the future to wreak havoc in 1980s Los Angeles. The case of The Terminator’s Polish title is sort of the opposite of what happened to the titles of The Hangover and Die Hard. The first Terminator film received a somewhat peculiar Polish name – Elektroniczny Morderca – whereas the Polish titles of the film’s sequels were more in line with the original as they included the word ‘terminator.’
Elektroniczny Morderca translates directly as ‘Electronic Murderer’ and admittedly reflects the film’s content quite well. This Polish title purposefully omitted the use of the word ‘terminator’ since in Polish this word denotes an artisan’s apprentice, not a killer. To Polish audiences in the 1980s the original title of the film at hand could’ve suggested, for instance, a story about shoemakers… However, once the original The Terminator became globally famous and plenty of people became aware of who the titular terminator is, the Polish name Elektroniczny Morderca (which does sound a bit cheesy to Poles) was dropped. Eventually, and a little regretfully, The Terminator eventually came to be known simply as Terminator in Poland.
Next up, we have another movie whose Polish title references murder. Phantasm is a 1979 science fantasy horror movie set in a small town in Oregon. It’s probably the least known film on our list, but it’s Polish title certainly makes up for that. The plot follows a young boy who discovers that the local undertaker is turning corpses into... dwarf zombies which are sent to work on another planet. Those who oppose the evil undertaker are attacked by lethal flying spheres.
In Poland, this cult classic received the title Mordercze Kuleczki which translates as ‘Murderous Little Balls’. Even though this Polish title does reference the events shown in the movie, it’s frankly just not scary enough for a horror film. It would probably be more appropriate for a horror parody…
While our last movie featured lethal spheres, the next picture on this list features the deadly character of Casey Ryback played by Steven Seagal. In the 1992 action thriller Under Siege, former Navy SEAL Ryback finds himself on board an American battleship hijacked by a group of mercenaries. Ryback kills a number of the hijackers in dazzling ways and eventually liberates the vessel.
In Poland, this popular movie was given the title Liberator which at first glance might seem appropriate to English speakers. After all, the main character in this film does liberate a ship. However, one has to remember that there is no such Polish word as ‘liberator.’ This English word translates into Polish as wyzwolicel. So, the Polish title of Under Siege replaced an English phrase with… an English word that’s completely different from its Polish equivalent. It doesn’t seem like that was of much help to Polish audiences.
Whereas the name Liberator may sound foreign to many Poles, our next title translation repeats a phrase that’s very familiar in Poland. The 2010 science-fiction comedy Hot Tub Time Machine came to be known in Poland as Jutro Będzie Futro which literally translates as ‘Tomorrow There’ll be a Fur Coat’. It ought to be said that the phrase jutro będzie futro is a popular idiom, one that means that you shouldn’t believe in promises about the future, because you never know what’s actually going to happen.
The decision to use this idiom as the title of the film at hand seems a little conflicted. In Hot Tub Time Machine, three friends, John Cusack’s Adam Yates, Craig Robinson’s Nick Webber-Agnew and Rob Corddry’s Lou Dorchen enter a hot tub which (as the movie’s title implies) enables time travel. They subsequently travel from the 21st century to the 1980s when they were much younger. So, Hot Tub Time Machine is actually about revisiting the past rather than on uncertain promises about the future.
Time travel is something that one might easily associate with our next Polish title, Wysłannik Przyszłości, which translates as ‘Emissary of the Future.’ From a title like that you can very well expect a film about somebody sent from the future on a very important mission. Meanwhile, the original title of this film is… The Postman, plain and simple (in case you’re wondering, listonosz is the Polish word for ‘postman’). This 1997 science fiction adventure movie was indeed set in the not-so-distant future of 2013, in a post-apocalyptic America, but its main character, a self-declared postman played by Kevin Costner, does not travel through time in any way. Therefore the Polish title at hand may be a little misleading to Polish audiences, especially since letters are a notoriously asynchronous form of communication and can be delayed for weeks.
Although quirky movie title translations can be quite amusing one should remember that the art of translation isn’t always an easy one. Sometimes, despite their best efforts, translators are better off coming up with peculiar new titles and there’s no point in being too hard on them for that.
Written by Marek Kępa, Jun 21
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