Good translation for movies makes you forget the actors on screen are speaking a language you do not understand; bad translation, such as the one for Les Miserables, makes you wish you had mastered that foreign language.

The movie version of Les Miserables has caught many in China by surprise, and part of the reason is in its Chinese translation. As a sung-through musical, it did not get the usual treatment of dubbing, which, in retrospect, would have been an interesting experiment.

Anyway, the 2-hour 38-minute film bored some to the exit, while moving many more to tears. Of those who were touched by the fate of Fantine or felt uplifted by the values of Valjean, quite a few were disgusted at the level of translation. It doesn't take an expert to know that the Chinese subtitles are way below par.