Images and Their Beauty in Korean, Chinese and Japanese Films: Relation with Subtitling Translation

This paper analyzes the relation between the subtitle translation and the beauty of the screen image in Korean, Chinese and Japanese films. Movies convey information through sound, image and dialogue channels. As one of the message channels, subtitle is a form of written language that includes all of the information. In some Korean, Chinese and Japanese films, it was noted that the beauty of the screen images coincides with the subtitle translation while there are others whose subtitle translations do not coincide with the screen images. In fact, these relations between the subtitle translation and the beauty of the screen image in films have some similarities and differences in terms of the colors, light, camera shooting techniques, spatial compositions and locality. Such disparity occured due to the local characteristics and similar culture including Buddhism and Chinese characters. In addition, it seems that the beauty of the screen image and the subtitle translation depends on the scene situation and the movie storyline. These phenomena identified in the films of East Asian countries are expected to exist in other countries.