How much Hindi in Slumdog?

March 16, 2009 6:32 PM

What percentage of the movie Slumdog Millionaire is in Hindi? (Yep, I'm the one guy who hasn't seen it yet...)

I'm in Japan and will rent it as soon as it is released on DVD, but I can't read Japanese well enough to read subtitles. I've heard that "parts" of the movie are in Hindi, but if I watch it without English subtitles will it detract from my understanding of the plot significantly?

posted by zardoz to media & arts (14 comments total)

I saw it in an American theater and don't recall that any of the Hindi was subtitled -- the majority of the film is in English, but there are a few parts which made me wonder if my partner (who doesn't speak Hindi) was understanding what was going on. But he followed along perfectly. So, I guess, did the rest of the audience.

In short -- shouldn't be a problem.
posted by artemisia at 6:38 PM on March 16

A lot of the movie is in English, but most of the scenes that take place when the main characters are children (much of the first 1/2 to 2/3 of the movie) are in Hindi with subtitles.
posted by LolaGeek at 6:43 PM on March 16

artemisia, your memory is faulty (which speaks to how well the filmmakers handled this, I think—they were so unobtrusive that you've forgotten them!). There are subtitles all over the place (literally—they don't live at the bottom of the screen) for at least the first third of the movie. The subtitles were artfully done: they were on translucent strips of color that complemented the image behind them.
posted by ocherdraco at 6:44 PM on March 16

'Nearly a third' of the dialogue, according to wikipedia.
posted by driveler at 6:50 PM on March 16

What ocherdraco said. They are meant to mimic the style of graphics during the gameshow. Which means they are part of the film, in my assumption. I would think any additional language subtitles would be at the bottom of the screen, in addition to the English ones.
posted by Fuzzy Skinner at 6:51 PM on March 16

All this being said, as I think about it, I think that the part of the film that's primarily in Hindi is very visually accessible. So, if there aren't English subtitles during that part for some reason, you'll be able to follow along reasonably well.
posted by ocherdraco at 6:54 PM on March 16

oh crap! my bad. i'm glad others came along to correct me!

/goggling at my own faulty memory
posted by artemisia at 6:58 PM on March 16

Do Japanese DVDs really not have English subtitles you can turn on? If so, the Hindi parts should be subtitled over again in English. Right?
posted by Precision at 11:05 PM on March 16

precision--99% of the time, no, the rental DVDs you get at the store are subtitled only in Japanese, though I think Blu-Ray movies have several languages stored on the disk.
posted by zardoz at 1:14 AM on March 17

I watch it at cinema in Singapore where it was screened with Chinese subtitle. I can't read Chinese either but it didn't detract from my understanding of the plot at all.
posted by joewandy at 3:19 AM on March 17

What percentage of the movie Slumdog Millionaire is in Hindi?

And to answer your question, ermmm .. about 15% ?
posted by joewandy at 3:20 AM on March 17

will it detract from my understanding of the plot significantly?

Not significantly (from what I can remember)... though you would miss some interesting details.

You could trying reading the novel the film is based on (Q & A by Vikas Swarup) to fill those in though.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:25 AM on March 17

I would think any additional language subtitles would be at the bottom of the screen, in addition to the English ones.

Perhaps, on a DVD. But at the cinema here in Holland where I saw it, the English artsy titles were gone and there was just Dutch bottom titling throughout (as a Dutch viewer would have expected).

Yeah, I'd say 25-30%. I wouldn't count on the artsy titles being there if it's not a version of the DVD geared towards an English-speaking market.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 3:26 AM on March 17

When you get it, you could play it in a media player that allows you to load external subtitles files (such as VideoLan) and then get some community-released subtitle files to load during playback. And you will need the subtitles...
posted by nielm at 5:09 AM on March 17