Ramayana English Trailer Chinese Subtitle Case Study

CTI321 Subtitling and Game Localization

In this assignment, you will create Chinese captions for an English-language movie trailer accessible via the link https://youtu.be/iDK6s4-2lm4?si=4x8iJDsMDB9LC1aw.

You are expected to demonstrate your ability to apply the theoretical knowledge and practical skills acquired in the first two seminars of this course to an audiovisual localization task. This includes analyzing your selected clip, defining your intended market and target audience, and creating, integrating, and justifying captions for the content.

In addition to producing the subtitled video, you must submit a written reflection on your localization process. This reflection should demonstrate your understanding of translation strategies, audience and platform adaptation, and your ability to identify and respond to linguistic, cultural, and technical challenges.

You may write your responses in either English or Chinese. However, once you choose a language for a given question, you must use that language consistently throughout your answer.

Question 1: Clip Description and Analysis

This question assesses your ability to plan your approach in relation to the intended audience, platform, and purpose of the subtitles.

Please answer all sub-questions below in your written report. You may use occasional bullet points for clarity, but all responses should be analytical and relevant to your chosen clip.

  1. Clip Description (10 marks, no more than 300 English words or 600 Chinese characters)
  • Briefly describe the date of release, content, format, and other relevant information of the movie trailer.
  • State whether the movie trailer has existing subtitles/captions (if yes, explain how you handled them).
  • Analyze the language features (e.g., slang, humor, narration, dialogue).
  • Determine whether it contains cultural elements, tone shifts, or genre-specific content that would make it an interesting localization task.
  • Target Market and Platform Planning (10 marks, no more than 300 English words or 600 Chinese characters)
  • Identify the target language market for your localized version.
  • Suggest a viewing platform or context where this localized clip would appear (e.g., social media, streaming platform, TV, cinema, etc.)
  • Describe your intended target audience in detail including age range, language/culture background, preferences, and familiarity with the content type (e.g., comedy, game genre, documentary style).

Question 2: Language Style (10 marks, no more than 300 English words or 600 Chinese Characters)

This question requires you to demonstrate your pre-translation thinking process by outlining your intended tone, register, and stylistic choices for your Chinese subtitles, based on the planning you did in Question 1.

Before completing your subtitles, you should consider:

  • What kind of tone is appropriate for the clip (e.g., casual, formal, humorous, emotional)?
  • What register or style will best suit your intended audience (e.g., internet slang, simplified/formal Chinese, idiomatic expressions)?
  • How will you handle culture-specific content (e.g., jokes, idioms, references) that may not directly translate into Chinese?

You may include 1–2 example lines (either already translated or planned translations) to illustrate your intended style.

Question 3: Translation and Integration (45 marks)

This question evaluates your ability to apply professional subtitling standards to a real-world localization task. You are required to caption, simulate a professional communication with your reviewer, and embed the Chinese caption into the video clip using appropriate tools and conventions.

a)      Translate the video following the Netflix Chinese style guide

  • Caption the full movie trailer into Chinese using the latest Netflix Chinese style guide (both subtitling and captioning conventions) as your reference.
  • Your subtitles should follow industry-standard practices in:
  • Line length and segmentation
    • Punctuation, number, and symbol formatting
    • Character limit and reading speed
    • Tone and terminology appropriate to your selected market
    • Ensure that the translation aligns with the target audience and language style discussed in Questions 1 and 2.
  • You are required to submit 2 files for this question:

i.               A Subtitle Reference Table

  1. The file should be in Excel or Word format
  • It should include the following columns:
  Source Text (in English)  Raw MT/AI Output or parts of a dialogue with GenAI  Target Text (Final Chinese Translation)  Comments (For you to communicate your translation choices to an imagined reviewer)

Question 4: Reflection (25 marks)

This question invites you to reflect critically on your translation process and use of MT/AI tools in audiovisual translation (AVT). Your answers should be critical and analytical.

Note: You are expected to include examples or screenshots (not counted in word/character limit) to illustrate your points.

  1. Identify and discuss ONE biggest challenge you encountered during the captioning process. (15 marks, no more than 450 English words or 900 Chinese Characters)
  • Describe the most significant linguistic, cultural, technical, or stylistic challenge you faced during the translation of the video.
  • Explain why this particular issue was difficult.
  • Detail the approach(es) you used to resolve it (e.g., research, peer discussion, experimentation, creativity…).
  • Explain how MT or AI tools facilitated your AVT process. (10 marks, no more than 300 English words or 600 Chinese Characters)
  • Which MT or AI-assisted tools (e.g., DeepL, ChatGPT, Google Translate, Deepseek, etc.) did you use, and for what purpose?
  • How did these tools help with consistency, speed, terminology, or idea generation?
  • Were there limitations or areas where you chose to revise or reject the MT output?
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Clip description and analysis

The clip is known as Namit Malhotra Ramayana English trailer that was released on 6th of August 2026 and it features dynamic wide screen visual effects, heavy Epic narration, and dramatic dialogue. In terms of language features, the clip uses English dialogue with formal phrasing, archaic terminology and solemn declarative vows. The main localization challenge is because of the utilisation of rich Hindu mythological terms, and it would be challenging to balance between respectful Chinese religious terminology and readable high impact cinema subtitles.

Target market and platform planning

The target market includes the Chinese viewers in Taiwan, Hong Kong, mainland China and Singapore. The platform supporting the video includes Netflix, Bilibili and youTube, and the target audience would be the viewers in the age group of 18 to 45 years who are interested in Epic fantasy, mythological blockbusters and international cinema.

Language style

The tone of message is likely to be epic, classical and grand that matches with the high stake narrative of a mythological saga. The culture specific content is rendered using established and recognised Chinese transliterations and terms.

Translation and integration

In performing the translation, the source text in English as utilised are ” who goes there? Your new king. And the target text would be in complete Chinese, and kept strictly within character limits. The subtitle source excerpt is included in the appendix section.

Reflection

The biggest challenge is balancing cultural adaptation with Netflix subtitling constraints. The challenge would be to phrase Indian mythological dialogue into Chinese subtitles without losing the weight or exceeding line length. This is mainly because the terms like “lord Vishnu avatar” or “Princess of janasaka” consume higher character counts. The resolution approach to consider is to apply translation condensation strategies which includes retaining essential character titles and core emotional weights while ignoring filler words.

MT and AI tool facilitation

The tools used are Chat GPT and deep learning, as they will help in initial draft alignment, technology lookups and alternative phrasing suggestions with respect to high literary vocabulary. However, the limitation is the over literality of the machine translation outputs.

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