Die Simpsons Der Film (the world of bootleg DVDs)

Any English speaking person visiting or living in China is bound to want to buy some DVDs. Heck any French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian etc speaking person would probably buy some too.

Now let's get one thing straight. Yes they are pirated, bootleg, whatever you want to call it. I'm sure there are goody two shoes who say what we do is wrong, buying them only supports the industry, blah blah blah. Fair enough, but unless I'm mistaken YOU CAN'T BUY REAL DVDs here! I hear computer software is the same.

And if it weren't for the enjoyment of badly dubbed DVDs, then living here wouldn't be nearly as much fun.

It is always a surprise wondering what you'll get. Was it filmed by someone in the cinema? Is it actually the movie that is on the cover? What language will it be played in? If in Chinese, will the subtitles be in English and if they are, will they actually make sense??? All these Questions - it becomes such a fun 'game'. haha.

So after waiting what seemed like forever for this movie to come out, I was dying to get my hands on a copy of the latest Simpsons movie.

I bought it on Monday (two days ago) and patiently waited for my husband to get home so we could watch it together.

I played around with the audio and subtitle buttons on the DVD remote. Hmm... it was German or Chinese.. Chinese or German. Where was the English? Alas there was no English to be found so we couldn't watch it :( I can understand the Chinese but there is no fun in that, no puns, no play on words. At least it's not totally wasted. I can give it to my sister and her boyfriend who speak fluent German and they can have a laugh at how bad the dubbing/translation is!!

So I get out another movie from our 'collection' and it seems it is in Mandarin with Finnish, Swedish, Danish or Norwegan subtitles. OK.. but, after fiddling around with the buttons on the remote again, Eureka! Out came the (accurate) English subtitles and we were 'rescued'.

Last night I was looking for something completely unrelated and then came across this post on Shanghaiist. So I wasn't the only one who bought a German copy! haha.

Should I perhaps go back a little further and entertain the non-resident readers some more? I was out shopping with a friend and we did not see any shops selling DVDs. So she asked one of the shopkeepers, who then walked us over to another shopkeeper (they all know each other you see.. I wouldn't be surprised if they were all related!) who then called out to a third shopkeeper. The tiny shop sold Nintendo and Playstation games but upon close inspection there were a few DVDs but the Simpsons one was nowhere to be found. So we asked and she didn't know what we were talking about, and we assumed she didn't have it. Then the shopkeeper in the store opposite heard us and at first thought we wanted the game "The Sims" but in the end she figured out what we wanted. So then the DVD shop owner rummaged through a drawer full of hidden treasures and pulled out what I wanted! Phew! If only I knew it was in German then.. hmm...

Living in China is full of such 'fun'!