TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Screenshots from the American thriller series “Hannibal” with censored Chinese subtitles replacing the word “kill” with “suck” have triggered discussion and mocking among Chinese-speaking netizens.
A set of screenshots that surfaced on social media recently show a conversation between protagonists Hannibal Lecter (portrayed by Mads Mikkelson) and Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) in which the former asks, “When you killed Randall, did you fantasize you were killing me?”
While the English subtitles matched the dialogue, the Chinese subtitles read, “When you sucked Randall, did you fantasize you were sucking me?”
(Weibo, Pink Glycyrrhizin Tablet screenshot)
In another scene, Lecter tells Graham, “Save yourself, kill them all.” The Chinese subtitles read, “Save yourself, suck them all.”
In China, words with “negative” meanings or implications are frowned upon in films, television programs, and novels, and media containing them may be removed from online platforms. A common way of censoring unfavorable words is to swap them out with replacement characters, such as empty boxes or asterisks.
In the case of “Hannibal,” post-production staff in charge of subtitling decided to self-censor by replacing the word “kill” with the Chinese character for “mouth” (口), which resembles an empty box. However, the character, which is more often associated with oral sex, gave the censored dialogue a new suggestive meaning.
(Weibo, Will Cannibal screenshot)
Netizens on Weibo (China’s Twitter equivalent) made fun of the over-censorship by making up their own sentences or referencing well-known idioms and titles.
User Winter Dumpling under a Peach Tree commented, “To suck a mockingbird.” Under another post, the user cited a verse from Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai’s “Ode to Gallantry”: “Sucking a man every 10 steps, not stopping for a thousand li.”
“The original violence has turned into pornography,” user Unique-jA wrote.
