Before the notes proper, here’s some general things to know about the translation:
The spoken Cantonese subs in the Chinese/English stacked subs are not meant to be used as Chinese subs for Mandarin speakers. They’re there for my VHS nostalgia & in case any Cantonese speakers want to see what I was translating from.
These notes are meant as a sort of appendix to the subtitles themselves, and ideally would be referenced after viewing the film (or during, if you feel like pausing). I think some jokes will be missed without the additional context in these notes, but I have tried to make the subs as contained as they can possibly be. There’s probably other jokes that I completely missed, as well, but I can’t do anything about that.
There are a few untranslated lines here and there throughout the movie, and these are mostly in crowd scenes. I did my best, but some were just too obscured by other sounds to hear with my novice ear. There’s also a few Cantonese-only lines that I just couldn’t figure out for similar reasons. Just know that I diligently attempted to do each and every one of these, but at a certain point I had to just move on from them. I can only ram my head into the wall so many times. I definitely could have just put whatever characters I thought I heard together and call it a day, but I didn’t want to start “hallucinating” like Whisper sometimes does. In any case, all of these lines are seemingly minor within the context of the film, although a Cantonese speaker may eventually prove me wrong on that!
In terms of romanizing names, I initially wanted to use Jyutping. It was the romanization method that I learned while doing this work, and I found it to be the easiest to look at and pronounce. The problem comes when people known to martial arts fans, such as Fong Sai-Yuk 方世玉 become Fong Sai-Juk. So in general, I tried to keep the readability of Jyutping, while adjusting certain instances like this to be more seamless for English speakers. One thing that bothers me is when Mandarin pronunciations are used in subs and it doesn’t match what is being said, so I tried to avoid that.
Names with a slang meaning I tried to put the meaning into the subs, where space allowed. More details below at the characters’ first appearance. The villain characters are an interesting conundrum, as they are mostly named after other movies. I wrestled with whether I should just have their name as spoken, translate it into a nickname, or simply put the referenced film’s English title. In keeping with the idea of bringing forward the film’s comedy to the English speaker, I think choosing to include the film title works the best in most cases.
Obviously, it would be impossible for me to do this without some errors. But just know I put a ton of time into this, and I think I did pretty good. I’m sure the Internet will let me know if I didn’t!
One final thing before we get to the actual translation notes: When including the Jyutping next to the Chinese characters below, I did not include the tone numbers because I don’t think this should be used as a real reference. I am just including these romanizations for some reading ease, and if you’re so inclined you can search the Chinese characters in CantoDict or other dictionaries to learn the tones for whatever you’re interested in.
And now the notes!
#0003 00:21 The characters above the iconic Shawscope logo, 卲氏綜藝體弧形濶銀幕 , literally translate to something like “Shaw Family Variety Show Curved Widescreen”
#0005 00:26 For 爛頭豬, Cricket’s great-grandfather, the Shaw intertitle calls him Broken Head Pig, so I kept it consistent. The first two characters, laan tau, are the same two characters as “Reckless” in Reckless Cricket’s name.
#0008 00:35 出恭 ceot gung means “to defecate,” and is a homophone for 出工 meaning “to go to work.”
#0014 00:55 Lei Gong (雷公), Chinese god of thunder, is named in the on-screen intertitles, but not in the audio. I added his name and status to the subs for better cultural context.
#0023 01:23 Not really sure if this is correct, this whole doctor section was pretty tough.
#0030 01:36 The doctor’s name is 爛笪笪 laan daat daat, which is slang for someone who is shameless and without integrity.
#0031 01:37 磅水 bong seoi is slang for pay up, it literally means to weigh water. Water is slang for money.
#0043 02:02 Not sure if this is an intended reference or not, but since the majority of other names are references, I decided to check this one too. 四紋龍 sei man lung doesn’t come up with anything, but 紋龍 man lung reveals a 1977 Pao Hsueh-Li film called 九紋龍 The Hero Tattoo with Nine Dragons, starring Chen Kuan-Tai. So maybe a variation on that, though I’m not sure that film was well-known enough to warrant a joke reference.
Also not sure if his name should be translated, but I decided to keep it as a name for clarity. It would translate to something like Four Tattooed Dragons, which makes sense since he had a couple on his chest and what looks like one on each arm, but calling him Lama Fist Four Tattooed Dragon seemed excessive.
#0048 03:18 Eating late night congee is slang for practicing martial arts. In the old days, when you were practicing martial arts all day and into the night, your wife was at home boiling congee. Congee is a meal that won’t go bad or get overcooked waiting for your return, so you can practice as long as you like, eat the “late night congee” when you come home to sleep, and then get up early to do it all over again. So in this case, all he says is eat a couple more bowls of night congee, and we are supposed to understand what that means. Kind of like burning the midnight oil in English, etc. I could have simply translated this as “practice” (that’s what the Mandarin dub does), but I wanted this sort of Cantonese culture to come through as much as possible. This is also a recurring thing throughout the movie, but in later subs I simply said night congee or congee, depending on space.
#0061 03:53 爛頭蟀 Lan Tau-Seot is our main character’s name, but it is also slang for someone hard to defeat and willing to risk everything despite disadvantage. Literally translates to Rotten Head Cricket (or something similar), but since Shaw titled the film The Reckless Cricket, I continued with that throughout. Also curious but not necessarily connected: Lantau Island, the largest HK island, is 爛頭島 Laan Tau Dou (Rotten Head/Reckless Island), although it seems to have a different, official Chinese name.
#0062 03:55 I’m not sure if this translation of the film’s Chinese title is exactly correct. I suppose you could say that about a lot of this, but some lines are more questionable to me than others!
#0091 05:37 開茶 hoi caa literally means open tea, and it is the act of selecting the tea before a 飲茶 jam caa meal (Dim Sum & Tea).
#0102 06:24 睇數 tai sou literally means see numbers, it is a Cantonese way to ask for the bill at a restaurant.
#0105 06:28 蚊 man literally means mosquito, but it is also slang for a HK dollar.
#0118 07:00 邊瓣 bin faan. Most HK fans will learn “hai bin dou aa” “where is…” through watching movies. In this case, he says hai bin faan, where faan is a word that means petals, or a section of something (like an orange). It’s also Cantonese slang for a line of business or a gang.
#0122 07:09 There are quite a few references to other kung fu films throughout the film. This character’s name, 南拳北腿 Southern Fist Northern Leg, is also the Chinese title of the 1975 kung fu classic, The Secret Rivals, released in HK in 1976, representing the film’s two main characters. Also, the classic 1976 film (released in 1977 in HK), The Hot the Cool and the Vicious, has a Chinese title of 南拳北腿活閻王, which is the three main characters’ names, Southern Fist, Northern Leg, and Living Hell King. I ended up putting the movie title as a nickname for the character alongside the translation, since the kung fu movie names are a running thing throughout the movie, and I wanted them to be represented in the subs. Kung fu fans in HK would’ve recognized the titles upon hearing them. I also needed to keep the translated name, Southern Fist Northern Leg, as Cricket makes fun of it a little later.
#0123 07:11 His partner’s name is 金狐 Golden Fox, which is a reference to the 1977 film, The Secret Rivals, Part II. In the first film they defeat Silver Fox, and Golden Fox is the villain of the sequel. The Mandarin burned-in subs have her name as Golden Pot (金壺), which is a homophone of Golden Fox, and perhaps part of the joke since she’s serving tea pots. I ultimately went with her name being Golden Fox because HKMDB lists that as her Chinese character name.
#0137 07:49 Cricket calls Southern Fist Northern Leg 南拳北腿, “Blind Fist Lame Leg 盲拳跛腿,” to make fun of him and his name. The two names aren’t homophones but they’re relatively close adjustments (in my opinion) [naam/maang & bak/bai] to make his name an insult.
#0145 08:12 充炮艇 cung paau teng literally means “pose as a gunboat,” it is slang for acting like a big shot.
#0146 08:14 羊牯 joeng gu literally means “castrated sheep,” it is slang for someone easily fooled.
#0175 09:43 牛屎蟀 ngau si seot literally “cow shit cricket” is a type of fighting cricket (yes, there’s a whole culture of cricket fighting in China). Calling out these cricket styles will return late in the film, so look for more in-depth info on cricket fighting at that point. Here’s a short story I found that involves the Cow Dung Cricket.
#0190 10:17 鴛鴦 jyun joeng is an interesting term. The separate characters are for male and female mandarin ducks. Together, they’re used for affectionate couples, or a HK drink of coffee mixed with tea. In other instances it can mean mismatched socks, etc. I went with Mismatched Eyes, since it seemed like the underlying meaning of the term in this instance, as best as could be communicated in a quick subtitle.
Adding to the joke here is that the actor playing Southern Fist Northern Leg, Addy Sung Gam-Loi, has a stage name of 大細眼 daai sai ngaan, which means Big Little Eye. In fact, that’s how he’s billed in the credits and on the poster for the movie!
#0191 10:18 搵老襯 wan lou can is Cantonese slang for being tricked or cheated, it literally means to search for old underwear.
#0205 10:51 Not sure what the “plum blossom” butt mole means, but it’s also in the burned-in Mandarin subs so I’m pretty sure it’s right.
#0210 11:37 When he asks about this character, Ouyang Ng-Fat, I had a hard time determining if the “Ng-Fat” was part of his name or not. Specifically because it sounds like he says 唔 m, the negative character in Cantonese, but I feel like that’s not a character used in names (although I don’t really know). In any case, this led me to find a Wiki entry on Chinese numerology that indicates the number 58, 五八 ng baat, sounds like no prosperity (唔發 m faat) in Cantonese. To my new-to-Cantonese ear it sounds like he says “m baat” here (but definitely faat in the later line), while the Mandarin burned-in subs say 不發 bat faat — bat is a negative used in Mandarin like m in Cantonese — so I went with m faat 唔發 to indicate the probable Cantonese joke of calling this prosperous father-in-law character “No Prosperity.” Who knows if that’s the case, but that’s my reasoning. For the English I went with Ng-Fat instead of M-Fat, even though Ng is a surname, because I’ve never seen an “M” name before.
#0212 11:46
#0213 11:48 These sign translations were relatively challenging as the OCR only wanted to recognize the left sign. I did my best with the second sign, but I’m unsure if it’s correct. What I have makes sense as it adds another layer of dislike of Cricket for his father-in-law, so I think I’m on the right track. Later in the movie, his father-in-law’s thugs call him baldy so this also lines up.
#0263 13:39 Cricket’s love interest is named 珠 zyu (meaning pearl, bead, drop, etc), but her name is also a homophone. Specifically when they call her 阿珠 aa zyu (aa being a common prefix to a loved one’s name), this is a homophone for 阿豬 aa zyu, which is slang for a stupid person (literally something like Mr/Ms Pig).
#0269 13:55 This character’s name is 蛇形刁手 se jing diu sau, which is also the Chinese title of the 1978 Jackie Chan film Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow. I originally translated his name to Serpentine Trickster (the name literally means snake-shaped tricky hand), but ultimately I went with the English name of the Jackie Chan movie so the joke would come through. 1979 HK audiences would certainly recognize the title immediately. In the subsequent uses of his name I shortened it to Snake or The Snake depending on context.
#0285 14:36 He says this pretty quick and it’s kind of a toss-up for me what he says, so not really sure of this at all. The Mandarin subs say something like “do/make/pretend this head!” which doesn’t makes a lot of sense, and I hear an additional character in the Cantonese. Sounds like an “s” character, so I went with se tau, snakehead, because it makes sense within the movie. But again, it could easily be something else.
#0302 16:37 To me, it sounds more like he says 焗死 guk sei, meaning to suffocate, but the Mandarin says 氣死 hei sei which led me to the Cantonese equivalent 激死 gik sei. The tones of guk6 and gik1 are also very different. But the previous character dou is also 1st tone and it sounds the same as the guk/gik, so I went with gik sei. This is a saying that can mean to drive someone crazy, annoy to death, etc. The father-in-law says it later on in the movie and I have it as “You’re driving me to an early grave!” I don’t have the space in this particular sub, so I had to go with something shorter. The full line is literally something like “Don’t let them beat you to death, it’ll still drive you crazy.”
#0304 16:41 It’s questionable if he says 四 (sei, meaning 4), but the burned-in Mandarin subs say 四大門派, and 四大門派 is also the Chinese title of the 1977 Golden Harvest film The Shaolin Plot. The four main sects in that film would be Shaolin, Wu-Tang, Kunlun and I’m Not Sure (I haven’t seen the movie, and spot checking my Blu-ray of it only revealed three of the four). A quick Google search reveals an SCMP article listing Shaolin, Wu-tang, Wing Chun and Tai Chi as four prominent, influential schools of Chinese martial arts. So some combo of these, and possibly a joke reference to The Shaolin Plot.
#0305 16:42 Perhaps a reference to Joseph Kuo’s 7 Grandmasters, but that film’s Chinese title is 虎豹龍蛇鷹, which translates to Tiger, Leopard, Dragon, Snake, Eagle.
#0306 16:44 十八羅漢 The 18 Arhats are a well-known part of Buddhist history as the original followers of the Gautama Buddha who achieved nirvana. In film, there was an independent HK movie in 1978 called The 18 Jade Arhats (十八玉羅漢), as well as Eighteen Fatal Strikes (十八羅漢拳), also in 1978. There’s a few other, older films with similar Chinese titles, but my guess is that this line is a reference to the 1978 film(s), to the arhats themselves, or both!
#0307 16:45 八萬罪人 translates to 80,000 sinners, but the characters for “sinner” literally mean crime person. 八萬罪人 is also the Chinese title to the 1979 Shaw Brothers film Invincible Enforcer, a film by Cheng Kang based on the true stories of HK police, estimating that 80,000 people were convicted of crimes in HK every year. I went with “convicts” to better represent the sentiment/reference in English, as sinners brings a whole different idea.
#316 17:04 劉教頭 lau gaau tau is probably a reference to director Lau Kar-Leung, as the Lau is the same character and 教頭 means something like head teacher, coach, instructor, etc. Lau Kar-Leung also made Shaolin Mantis the previous year, and he was prominently featured in that film’s trailer.
Unrelated, but perhaps interesting is that the Chinese title for the 1979 Sun Chung movie, The Kung-Fu Instructor, is simply 教頭, the head teacher, coach, etc from above.
#0319 17:09 攤直 is a slang/humorous expression for dying, literally “to lie down flat.”
#0366 19:07 蘇, the “So” in So Clan, is the same surname of the infamous kung fu folk hero Beggar So. The Jyutping for the character is Sou, but I went with So because of the general familiarity in English with the spelling of Beggar So’s name.
#0369 19:16 廣東十虎 The legendary Ten Tigers of Canton
#0373 19:25 陸阿采 Luk Aa-Coi was a Hung Gar master who passed on the art to Wong Tai (黃泰), who passed it on to his son Wong Kei-Ying 黄麒英, who passed it to his son Wong Fei-Hung 黃飛鴻. It is also possible Wong Kei-Ying learned directly from Luk Aa-Coi. Luk was played by Chen Kuan-Tai in the 1976 Shaw film Challenge of the Masters, where he taught Hung Gar to Wong Fei-Hung after Wong was forbidden to learn by his father. That film’s Chinese title is simply Luk Aa-Coi & Wong Fei-Hung (陸阿采與黃飛鴻).
Also named is noted folk hero Fong Sai-Yuk 方世玉, represented in this era by Alexander Fu Sheng in Chang Cheh’s Shaolin films, and later by Jet Li in a pair of Corey Yuen films. The character appears in countless other films as well, with the first bearing his name in HKMDB going all the way back to 1938 (and directed by Hung Chung-Ho, Sammo Hung’s grandfather). There was also a 1977 Taiwanese film titled The Invincible Kung Fu Trio, which paired Hung Hsi-Kwan with Fong Sai-Yuk and Luk Ah-Choi.
#0476 25:20 Bodhidharma is a Buddhist monk who lived in the 5th or 6th Century, who brought Zen Buddhism to China, and is also regarded as the founder of Shaolin kung fu.
#0477 25:24 The subtitle says “So-lin” because they are making a pun on Shaolin martial arts, by inserting their family name, in this case So of Beggar So, alongside the “lin” character of Shaolin. In Cantonese, it’s pronounced differently — shao lin is siu lam — but I kept it to the well-known romanization for obvious reasons.
#0479 25:29 江湖, pronounced gong wu in Cantonese, is the infamous “jiang hu,” the wuxia martial world. Literally rivers and lakes (as in you’re wandering without a home through the world).
#0497 26:12 The name of the bridge, 屠龍橋 Dragon Slaying Bridge, could be a reference to other films. The “Dragon Slaying” part of the title is the same 屠龍 that shows up in the title of Jin Yong’s Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber (The full name of the sword being the Dragon Slaying Saber).
The 1970 Lo Wei-directed Shaw film, Brothers Five, has a Chinese title of 五虎屠龍, which literally translates to Five Tigers Slay the Dragon. If we go back even further to 1950, there’s a Cantonese film by Wu Pang (directer of 58 Wong Fei-Hung films) called 廣東十虎屠龍記 How the Ten Tigers of Canton Slew the Dragon. With Reckless Cricket supposedly learning from a school within the lineage of the Ten Tigers of Canton in the previous scene, it’s not too far a leap to imagine that his next obstacle of the dragon is more than a simple coincidence.
#0515 27:03 This character’s name, 龍形摩橋 Dragon-Form Mo Kiu, is a little tougher to connect as a direct reference to other films. His name is the Chinese name of the Southern Dragon style of Shaolin Kung fu, literally Dragon Shape Rubbing Bridges. It’s probably just a play on that, with him actually hanging out on a bridge, and possibly a Rubbing/Robbing pun (although that seems like a stretch). There’s also the possibility of a reference to a specific character in another movie, but I’ll have to leave that to someone else.
The films with “Dragon Form” in their titles reveal very little that could be connected via a joke, mostly just a couple of independent films that I have no idea if they were popular enough for this sort of thing.
If you’re curious, they are: Snake Shadow, Lama Fist (1979), with the Chinese title of 龍形虎步千里追, literally translating to Dragon-Form Tiger Steps A Thousand Miles in Chase. It does star Shaw regulars Chi Kuan-Chun, Chiang Tao (who is also playing the character in question in Reckless Cricket), and Bruce Tong Yim-Chaan, but coming out the same year as The Reckless Cricket makes it a long shot.
There’s also a 1978 film called 龍形刁手金鐘罩 The Magnificent, a film shot in South Korea starring Chan Sing and Carter Wong. The Chinese title literally translates to Dragon-form Tricky Hands Golden Bell Shield. Apparently the Dragon-style character teams up with a Snake-style character to defeat a “Golden Bell Shield” villain. The “tricky hand” part of the title is the same as in the title of Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow. Again, a long shot.
And just for fun, there’s also a 1982 film titled the character’s full name, 龍形摩橋, directed by Ng See-Yuen with the English title of The Ring of Death.
#0536 28:27 This is a visual joke that those who can read Chinese will immediately get, but if you simply subtitle it as written it would just say Shaolin Temple (or Siu Lam Temple in Cantonese). But the “siu” character 笑 used here, means smile or laugh, and is a homophone for the one used in the actual Shaolin Temple’s name, 少, meaning young or youthful.
On top of that 笑林 itself has a meaning of joke or humor, which stems from the 笑林廣記 Siu Lam Gwong Gei, a joke book from the Qing Dynasty. The title literally translates to Extensive Gleanings From the Forests of Laughter.
Obviously, that’s a little much to put into a subtitle, so I went with Laughing Forest to reflect the joke book’s title, as well as adding “Shaolin” in quotes to indicate that all is not as it seems.
#0541 28:40 If you’re reading this, you probably know that San Te is the main character (played by Gordon Liu) of Lau Kar-Leung’s 36th Chamber of Shaolin. What alludes non-Chinese speakers is that his name literally means “Three Virtues.” I included this in the subtitle because it sets up a joke in the following line.
As a side note, I kept the “San Te” Mandarin romanization that is fairly prevalent, instead of going with Cantonese’s Saam Dak, for the same recognition reasons as all the other stuff like this. I generally dislike when subtitles use names that are clearly not being spoken, but in cases like this I understand why it is done.
#0544 28:46 So if San Te is Three Virtues, then here is Si Te (Four Virtues)! I kept consistency with the Mandarin romanization here. In Cantonese his name is Sei Dak. This joke is maybe not the freshest, but it reminds me of the one in This is Spinal Tap where Nigel explains why his amp goes to 11: “It’s one louder.”
#0551 29:00 When he says his name contains “rotten,” he’s referring to the first character of his name 爛 laan, meaning rotten, etc.
#0585 30:36 It sounds like he says 胖人 bun jan, which translates to fat person. Fatty in Cantonese seems to be 肥仔 fei zai, but in keeping with the tradition that most every Hong Kong movie has a character named Fatty, I’m erring on the side of them saying Fatty. I’m probably wrong, but in this case I don’t mind.
#0605 32:16 It sounds like this line is slightly cut, probably because of Celestial’s frame-cutting restoration techniques where the beginning and ending of shots were removed. I imagine they did this because it’s easier than cleaning up splices, but I don’t know that there was ever a specific confirmation as to why they adopted the policy in their initial restoration sweep.
#0646 34:50 善哉 sin zoi is an interesting phrase, which is “an expression of praise, often said by Buddhist monks in movies” according to CantoDict. It can be used to praise something or someone, atone for sins, etc. It’s even the name of a Japanese dish made of beans and sugar! You could probably translate this many ways, but I went with “good” as it seemed to fit the situation better than anything else I could think of. I still don’t like it really, but I’m tired.
#0654 36:25 On this line he mentions specifically brothers and uncles, or cousins, preceded by a term for addressing everyone. Due to the limited space and ease of understanding, I just simplified it to everyone.
The 開下眼界 “eye-opening” part can be translated differently, too. It literally means open your eyesight or outlook, but it can mean eye-opening or to broaden your horizons. Since the brother repeats the phrase directly after this line, I decided to have them both represented in the subs.
#0656 36:33
#0657 36:35 I’ve always wondered what is being said in these sorts of talisman reading situations, but I can’t remember it being subtitled in other movies. So I tried to do it. Did I succeed, I am not sure, but I think I might have? It took me forever to do this!
#0700 38:45 Here the sub says that they are both ruined, but I kind of translated the intention more than the words. He literally says they are “黑店 hak dim” (black tavern), which is slang for a dishonest shop/shopkeeper, a store charging high prices, and, in the past and in wuxia stories, an inn run by bandits. So yes, this is also the Chinese title of the wonderful 1972 Shaw film, The Black Tavern.
#0721 39:32 易過借火 ji gwo ze fo literally means “as easy as asking another smoker for a light.” It’s like saying something is too easy or a piece of cake in English, so I used that as the smoker line would be too long for the subtitle.
#0730 39:54 He says something like I’m a spiritual boxer old man (神打老子 san daa lou zi), and I’ll train you to be a spiritual boxer kid (神打小子 san daa siu zi).
神打 happens to be the Chinese title of Lau Kar-Leung’s The Spiritual Boxer, and 神打小子 is listed as an alternate Chinese title to its spiritual sequel, The Spiritual Boxer Part II. I don’t know that these are specifically references, I’m just adding this as a “oh, cool” sort of thing.
More importantly, 神打 is the general name of the folk practice of Chinese spirit possession used in Lau Kar-Leung’s debut film, as well as in this section of The Reckless Cricket.
#0753 42:13 Like the line above at #0656/657, I did my best to figure this one out. I’m sure someone will tell me how poorly I did hahaha. The first part was subbed in the Mandarin burned-in subs later in the movie when Cricket says it, and it lines up with what he’s saying, so that part should be right at least.
太上老君 taai soeng lou gwan is also known as Taishang Laojun (The Supreme Venerable Sovereign) or Daode Tianzun (The Heavenly Lord of Dao and its Virtue) in English, one of the Three Pure Ones (the highest immortals of Taoism). It is believed by some that Lao Zi, who wrote the Tao Te Ching, was a manifestation of Taishang Laojun. Also Lao Zi’s Chinese name is 老子, the same name that Lee Hoi-Sang calls himself in sub #0730 (Spiritual Boxer Lao Zi 神打老子), not sure that this really means anything though. Lao Zi is “an honorific title, meaning ‘old’ or ‘venerable'” according to his Wiki entry.
#0754 42:15 The Maoshan priests refers to Taoists from Mt. Mao, but I kept Maoshan as that name is fairly well-known. Mt. Mao is where the Shangqing School of Taoism was formed during the Jin Dynasty (266-420), and the Maoshan Sect is an offshoot of that.
#0757 42:59 This one I’m kind of at a loss as to exactly what he’s saying. I did my best.
#0768 43:37 I’m not sure of the full significance of the 開路符 road-opening charms/talismans in this specific context, but I was able to find many references to a Taiwanese “River and harbor cleansing ceremony” at the beginning of the fifth lunar month, coinciding with the Dragon Boat Festival. These “Road-opening talismans” are placed with salt and rice every 72 steps along the route.
#0770 43:44 Reference to the famous 1975 Joseph Kuo film, The 18 Bronzemen.
#0785 44:24 雀躍 zoek joek is slang for jump for joy or very excited (literally bird jump), but translating it as him saying Jump for joy! here seemed weird. So I went with the intention more than the words.
#0793 45:04 I’m not particularly familiar with sponge gourds or luffas, but they are native to Asia.
#0812 45:58 Really not sure on this one. The Mandarin burned-in sub says something like “the fish is smelly, but still sold,” but the Cantonese doesn’t sound like he’s saying that. I did my best.
#0816 46:17 Not sure on this one either. The Mandarin sub says Mouse Feet, but I’m not sure what that means in this context. It sounds like he says mau si goek, which would make sense as “mouse feet” if “mau si” were a loanword for mouse. I actually found that listed in Pleco, but it had no characters associated with it, so I just used the proper name 老鼠 lou syu for the Chinese text.
#0821 46:37
#0822 46:40 These two lines I really can’t hear what they’re saying. Whisper returned nonsense. I took the Mandarin sub and adapted it as best as I could but I’m pretty sure the Chinese isn’t correct.
#0831 47:23
#0832 47:24 This character, 鷹爪鐵甲衫, is named almost, but not quite, the Chinese title to The Invincible Armour 鷹爪鐵布衫. The only difference is the use of 甲 gaap (meaning armor or shell, nail, etc.) in The Reckless Cricket, while Invincible Armour uses 布 bou (meaning cloth). Regardless of the difference, this character is clearly a reference to Invincible Armour. I chose to add the “Invincible” to the Iron Armor in the sub (even though he doesn’t say it) to let the reference come through, as well as using the British spelling of “Armour” to reflect the well-known original English title of the film.
#0854 48:23 癮 means addiction, habit, or a strong obsession, but I chose to just say “it’s not crazy” because it seemed to make more sense contextually to me. Like how in English “crazy about knives” would mean a strong obsession with knives.
#0869 49:06 The Sha Tin race track (沙田馬場) is a horse race track in Hong Kong which opened Oct 7, 1978, just 5 months before the debut of The Reckless Cricket in March 1979. It’s quite a topical joke! The Mandarin dub changes this joke to be about going to play mahjong.
#0887 51:01 Here Lo Lieh says he has 牛頸 ngau geng, literally beef/ox neck. It also can mean someone who is very stubborn.
#0891 51:09 Here when he says “you’re crazy,” he says 黐線 ci sin, which literally means to have your electrical wires touching, as in a short circuit.
#0892 51:10 This line he says fast so there’s not enough room to really put what he’s saying. He says something like “Your stubbornness is your business, what does it matter to me?”
#0894 51:22 The “three kneels and nine kowtows” is the most solemn version of the kowtow to show respect, usually performed before the Emperor or the coronation of a new Emperor.
#0959 55:40 The Grand Birthday celebration is for elders over 50 reaching a new decade. Paraphrasing from CantoDict, “For male, the Grand Birthday Celebration will be on the 60th, 70th, etc, for female, will be on 61st, 71st, etc.”
Not sure if the Master Lau refers to anyone in specific (I don’t think so), as there’s no one in the film named Lau except an earlier reference to a “Mantis Fist Instructor Lau” who we never see and who never comes up again. Lau Kar-Leung was only 42/43 in 1979, so not him. Perhaps his father, Lau Cham 劉湛, who acted in Cantonese films since 1949 and was a student of Lam Sai-Wing (and played him in the Kwan Tak-Hing Wong Fei-Hung films!). I feel like this is a stretch, though.
#0979 56:40 洞房 dung fong means the bridal chamber, but literally it means something like hole/cave room or penetrating room. Not really a note, but I just find the way certain Chinese words are constructed to be amusing.
#0983 56:46 Like this, for instance: 閘住 zaap zyu is a term used to stop someone from speaking of something unlucky, and literally it means “close gate” (with the mouth being the gate to be closed).
#0989 56:58 And coincidentally, here’s another great Cantonese expression, 飯桶 faan tung, meaning a good-for-nothing person, slacker, etc. Literally it means rice bucket, as in you’re not worth all the rice you eat.
#1047 1:00:06 This is a hard one to fit into a single sub. In Cantonese, 食豬 sik zyu (eat pig), also means to deflower a virgin. According to the Words.HK listing in Pleco, “in Chinese traditional marriage there’s a ritual called ‘return bride’s home on the third day,’ if verified the bride is a virgin, the groom will bring along a grilled piggy as a gift… so ‘to eat pig’ is used to imply taking away a girl’s virginity before marriage.”
On top of that, Cricket says that he will treat his father-in-law to 豬腳薑 (zyu goek goeng), which is a Cantonese dish called Pork Knuckles and Ginger Stew. According to the Wikipedia entry, “it is traditionally eaten by new mothers… and is presented to friends and family to indicate the arrival of a new baby.” So you can see how this one line carries a lot of meaning that is impossible to stuff into a single subtitle. I ultimately shortened it from “I’ll treat you to” to “I’ll bring” because the line was a little long.
#1068 1:00:54 He calls the kid 奀仔 ngan zai, meaning skinny kid. It could also mean weak or puny boy, but in keeping with the HK movie tradition of calling people Fatty, etc., I made it Skinny since Fatty in Cantonese is basically the same construction: 肥仔 fei zai.
#1069 1:00:56 If I have it correct, he asks “Why are you so scheming?” That sounded a little odd, so I went with a simpler “Why’d you do that?” since the following line informs this one enough for subtitle purposes.
#1092 1:01:48 This line is one of those where it seems pretty clear what he’s saying but I had a hard time figuring out what the zi character was. Eventually I found a Words.HK entry in Pleco that had an alternate Cantonese pronunciation of 住 zyu, as zi and that it meant “yet” when used with a negation (as in the 唔食 m sik) that precedes it here.
This is a good example of why this whole endeavor took me so long, as I was after more than just simply translating the movie into English. I was also attempting to create as accurate as possible spoken Cantonese to translate from, in an attempt to have the translation be more culturally specific to Hong Kong, but also to learn some Cantonese in the process. It’s seemingly disrespectful to attempt this translation as a non-speaker, but I put in a lot of work to show that I carry an immense amount of respect for the language.
#1109 1:02:41 I was unable to find anything that this character could be a reference to. The one that instantly springs to mind is the silkworm style in Bastard Swordsman, but that came out in 1983 so it can’t be that. Perhaps it’s just a play on someone adopting the style of an insect, and now coming to challenge Cricket to a so-called duel of insects. hahaha
#1156 1:05:38 大蝦細俾屎餵 daai haa sai bei si wai is a Cantonese saying used to tell bullies to get lost. Literally it means “big bullies small is fed with shit.”
#1174 1:06:49 放馬過來 fong maa gwo lei is another fun saying that means “Bring it on!” or “Give me all you’ve got!” It literally means “release the horse to come here.”
#1181 1:08:30 Sulfur is apparently used as a snake repellent. I had no idea. I learned more than some Cantonese while doing this! (Although the Internet says sulfur is not effective against snakes, I’m choosing to believe that the 46-year-old, completely realistic movie is more accurate.)
#1194 1:09:09 死蛇爛鱔 sei se laan sin is a Cantonese saying that means someone is lazy, good-for-nothing, unambitious, etc. Literally means dead snake, rotten eel. So being lazy and laying there like a dead snake would. These are the sorts of interesting Cantonese sayings that I wanted to come through in the translation as much as possible.
#1238 1:11:13 Here Chiang Tao calls Cricket 冚家拎 ham gaa ling, which, according to the Words.HK entry in Pleco, literally means “death to your whole family,” but it is also used as a general expression of anger, contempt, etc. It can also be a rude way to address someone. I went with “You bastard” as it seemed to fit and the example sentence in the entry had it translated as such.
#1291 1:15:28 I’m not sure about this one at all. I had originally had it as 畀過幫打! but in my re-check, when Whisper was much better with spoken Cantonese, it returned 被我暴打! which seemed to make more sense contextually.
#1294 1:15:58 This one is perhaps a bit dubious, too. I feel pretty confident with most of it except the 依係 ji hai at the end. It sounds like ji hai, but I’m not too sure that it’s exactly these specific characters.
Lots of other lines I was able to compare to the Mandarin subs and see the characters or the idea of what they were saying and find corresponding Cantonese characters. This is a line only in the Cantonese version, so I have nothing to bounce ideas around with.
#1297 1:16:25 Here (and in the next three lines) where Snake is calling out his attacks, he’s purposefully calling the wrong location so he can hit an unguarded location when Cricket reacts to his call.
#1317 1:17:22 爛茶渣 laan caa zaa is a slang term for women over 30. Literally it means rotten tea dregs. The term comes from the saying, 男人四十一枝花，女人四十爛茶渣 naam jan sei sap jat zi faa, neoi jan sei sap laan caa zaa, which, as CantoDict defines it, means “men at age 40 blossom like flowers, women at age 40 are nothing but used tea leaves.” So the connotation is that Zyu is too old, so that’s why I translated it as “She’s old like rotten tea dregs” instead of just having him call her Rotten Tea Dregs.
#1345 1:18:24 醜死鬼 cau sei gwai means very embarrassing or shameful in Cantonese. Literally it means ugly dead ghost.
#1390 1:20:42 As promised earlier, here is the return of the fighting crickets talk. As I learned while trying to figure out what Shorty was talking about, there is a rich history in China of fighting crickets and keeping crickets as pets. The crickets are identified by the colors of different regions of their bodies, such as a yellow head, etc. Here’s one of the resources I found to learn enough about this to translate this line as properly as possible.
#1398 1:20:57 百戰百勝 baak zin baak sing is a fun expression meaning that you win every battle. Literally it means 100 battles, 100 wins. Keep it 100, as the kids say.
#1404 1:21:11 Collectively, Toads, Scorpions, Lizards, Centipedes, and Spiders are known in Chinese as 五毒 ng duk, The Five Poisons. This is also the Chinese title of the Chang Cheh classic, The Five Venoms AKA Five Deadly Venoms. Of course, this must be a reference to the film.
#1408 1:21:24 Here when the Five Poisons are mentioned by name, I chose to translate it as five deadly venoms to reflect the referenced film’s well-known English title and make sure the reference comes through.
#1435 1:23:23 Here when he directly calls Zyu 爛茶渣 laan caa zaa, in order to keep the meaning of the saying I translated it as Old Rotten Tea instead of the literal Rotten Tea Dregs.
#1455 1:24:44 Here you can see Zyu using the feather to antagonize Cricket and keep his frenzy up. This is probably something done when fighting crickets to rile them up. Back in the scene with Shorty and the real crickets, they use small sticks to do something similar. Also at the beginning of the scene, where they have Cricket cooped up in the basket, this is like a human-sized version of the little baskets seen in Shorty’s cricket fight. They fed him, now he is in full-on Reckless Cricket mode, and they must steer the fight as you would with a cricket. Not really a translation note, I suppose, but whatever.
#1488 1:27:48 I have a friend who has been studying Mandarin for many years — long-time readers of the site will know him as Uncle Jasper! — and when I last saw him he told me of one of his favorite Chinese words. It was 口水 hau seoi, the word for saliva. Literally it means mouth water. I thought it was a good one, and I’m happy to see it turn up in The Reckless Cricket. While looking up this line, I happened upon the wonderful 口水佬 hau seoi lou, literally mouth water guy, which means someone who is very talkative in Cantonese slang!
In the context of this scene, I believe Cricket is referring to spitting venom onto his opponents, but I think he literally says “Give them the saliva.” And if you look at what he’s doing, he’s wiping his mouth before each strike, literally giving them saliva. I did find this page in Chinese talking about animals’ saliva, and they used the term to describe a spider’s venom. So that was good enough for me to translate it as “Give them the venom!”
Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the movie!
If you read these notes and still want more Reckless Cricket content, make sure to check out How (and Why) I Translated The Reckless Cricket, as well as my review of the film. You can also find the movie with my subs by visiting here, or watch it on YouTube!
(All the Reckless Cricket lobby cards are from the HKMDB)