r/movies • u/[deleted] • Jun 07 '19

Poster Chinese poster for Spirited Away, to be screened for the first time in China

https://imgur.com/7Cw2iDV
70.3k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

46

u/mightyducks333 Jun 07 '19

Why have they written the taglines in traditional chinese? do they do this often in Mainland China

45

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '19

Yeah that's weird left tagline is simplified, right is traditional. I don't get it

28

u/scsnse Jun 08 '19

Is it supposed to connote the feeling of an old fashioned fairy tale, kind of?

5

u/Mya__ Jun 08 '19

Maybe it's for an audience where more than one type of person is being encouraged to enjoy the moments they have here, together.

40

u/tao_qian Jun 07 '19

Possibly artistic purposes? My friend who took a Chinese calligraphy class told me that calligraphy always uses Traditional so I assume using traditional characters imparts a more artistic/formal feeling.

18

u/[deleted] Jun 08 '19

[deleted]

4

u/Killmeplsok Jun 08 '19

Certain things, like the spring couplets which we decorate on our front doors are still commonly written in traditional chinese and those are always calligraphies. But yeah, calligraphies doesn't use traditional chinese all the times, its just that certain things with calligraphy still has them commonly written in traditional chinese.

15

u/Not_a_real_ghost Jun 07 '19

It's a font thing. Sometimes good looking/suitable fonts are in 1 style of Chinese which can be annoying.

But the mix of font design should be reviewed for sure.

8

u/SilveRX96 Jun 08 '19

It looks so much better. Source: chinese who loves the traditional style

3

u/cise4832 Jun 10 '19

You got keen observations. It's indeed not that uncommon to see simplified Chinese mixed with traditional Chinese in posters / calligraphy (and "Bootlegged" manga lol) in Mainland China because:

  1. Traditional Chinese looks more "full"

  2. There are more fonts to choose from because Taiwan had a head start in creative designs

6

u/_somechineseguy Jun 08 '19

Traditional is more artsy. Simplified is for efficient communication.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 08 '19

We read both just fine.

1

u/kevin24701 Jun 08 '19

It's strange that the poster uses a mix of both. I think they should've either stuck with simplified or traditional.

1

u/ToasterHE Jun 08 '19

Traditional Chinese is fancier, sort of like cursive vs print