UPDATE 2023:
With the recent closure of the standalone Naver Movie site, I suggest replacing the advice in this blog post with Daum Movies. It still functions basically the same way.
Alternative: Daum Movies
The Daum Movie site still functions in basically the same way as the old Naver Movie site. I'll probably be using this from now on for quick title translations.
Here's an example of a search there for "Dracula dead and loving it" which reveals very simply that the Korean title was "못 말리는 드라큐라" ("Unstoppable Dracula").
Not bad. Let's hope this site stays simple and functional.
I'll keep the old post below for reference to what the old Naver Movie site looked like.
Original post continues below.
This post will look at a very simple way of finding the precise title that a
foreign movie goes by (American or any other international non-Korean movie)
in Korea. Recently, most movies have been just direct transliterations: the
title is exactly the same, pronounced the way a Korean would read the English
title out. But older movies often translated the meaning of the title, or
something close to it. So here's how to verify what exactly the movie was
called.
The short answer is: use Naver Movies. This database has every movie ever, and
displays the titles both in Korean and English.
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| Naver movies database |
But as this post is targeted to non-Korean speakers, I'll run through an
example below.
Example in honor of Jim Varney
Imagine chatting with your Korean coworkers, and everyone is talking about
their favorite movies. It's your turn and you confidently say "Ernest Goes to
Camp" but they haven't heard of this movie. Maybe if you told them the title
in Korean... but how could you know what a movie was titled in Korean?
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| Ernest series Korean posters. The only examples I could find online. Image: NamuWiki |
Note on title translations
As I mentioned, these days most western/foreign movies tend to carry their titles directly over into Hangul. Thus, Robocop is just 로보캅 ("ro-bo-cap"), not some kind of literal 로봇 경찰관 (robot policeman).
But many others still have their titles translated into Korean.
Frozen, for example, is
겨울왕국
("Winter Kingdom"). This is especially true with children's movies, and with
movies released prior to 2000. What's the easiest way to find these Korean
titles?
Use the Naver movies site
Simple. Use the Naver Movies site:https://movie.naver.comUpdate 2023 January note:This site is shutting down, but the same can be done with the normal Naver search. See: Naver Movie shuts down, why I am sad about it, and "Unstoppable" movies
Just type in the film's name (in English) in the upper-right search box, and
results will immediately appear. Just click the result you want.
It will bring you to the profile info page for that movie, on which the Korean hangul title will be listed.
You can see here that the Ernest Goes to Camp was called in Korean
<어니스트 1 - 캠핑 가다> or, literally: "Ernest 1: Going Camping."
Fairly literal translation.
Maybe I picked a bad example since surely anybody with a lick of English would have guessed this. I'm glad it has generally positive reviews. The man was a legend.
This was an example of an English title simply translated at its most basic
meaning into Korean. But there are more fun examples.
English titles creatively translated into Korean
But other movies may have very different titles.
For example, look at the page for the Bill Murray classic
Groundhog Day.
Another example is the 1991 classic
Career Opportunities.
Somehow this movie is titled <백마 타고 휘파람 불고>, which literally means something like "Whistlin' While Riding A White Horse."
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| Career Opportunities movie poster and video case. Image: 시론 blog |
I'm sure you know that "white horse" is Korean slang for an ethnically white
woman, and that "riding" has certain sexual connotations. I can only guess
that this title is a reference to the slightly awkward male lead whistling
Dixie while trying to get it on with hottie Jennifer Connelly. (Side note: she
was still amazingly hot in Top Gun: Maverick). My Korean buddy, who had never
heard of this movie, thinks the title has no specific Korean metaphorical
meaning but sounds kind of flirty, like a cool guy whistling at girls.
Personally, I wonder if there's an associated feeling like with 바람을
피우다.
Yet it could also just be a reference to this iconic shot of the movie:
Probably a clever play on both concepts. It really makes me sad that today's movies all just get transliterated in Korean instead of cleverly translated like this. There are some real gems out there of translated movie titles from the pre-2000s era.
Anyway, the site has a nice mobile version so you can do a quick check on your
phone any time you need to know the Korean title too:
Find the real original Korean titles of Korean movies
This also works in reverse. You can look up the English titles of Korean
movie, which are almost always either literally translated or really liberally
translated. The only example I can think of off the top of my head that kept
its Korean title when shown abroad with English subtitles (when needed) was
Minari.
For example, a popular movie here in Korea featuring Lee Jaejung (long before
he was on Squid Game) was the movie 신세계, which using the same website we can see is just called "New World" (the
literal title) in English.
This is common enough. <택시운전사> is just A Taxi Driver,
literally the same meaning. The Handmaiden is in Korean:
<아가씨>, so while translated could have a bit of a different nuance
or feeling.
Then there are other movies that you may have loved watching, but didn't
realize the Korean titles are different and maybe reveal something
interesting. Off the top of my head, this happens with movies that have
Korean place names as their titles, which maybe a foreign audience won't be
familiar with.
So you get <해운대>, the name of a beach in the south of Korea where
the film is set, changed to Tidal Wave. And < 곡성>, the name
of the isolated location in the movie, becomes The Wailing.
Play around and explore your favorite Korean movies. This of course is a great source for actor, director, etc information.
And I'm sure I don't have to mention it to you, but this can really help when you're trying to find (fully legal of course) sites to download movies or subtitles.
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