English-speakers can usually get by in Asia if they do not speak the local language, but they will have trouble following the alien dialect invented for the 3-D blockbuster Avatar.
And the film's local distributor, 20th Century Fox Hong Kong, has not offered a solution. Those who cannot read Chinese may not have entirely understood the holiday hit since it opened mid-month because the much-hyped James Cameron-directed epic does not have English subtitles for the alien Na'vi dialogue.
The alien language, which Cameron and University of Southern California Professor Paul Frommer developed, was translated only into Chinese subtitles for the Hong Kong release. Readers have complained to the South China Morning Post. Nic Tinworth from Sheung Wan wrote that he went to see the movie with his nephew at Broadway Cyberport.
'While we both thoroughly enjoyed the film, we were somewhat disturbed and frustrated that the alien Na'vi dialogue only had Chinese subtitles,' he wrote.
Although the dialogue was not integral to the film, Tinworth wrote, it would have been nice to know what the characters were saying. 'Would the Hong Kong distributor of Avatar care to explain?' he asked.
Early in the film, the main character, played by Australian actor Sam Worthington, meets his first alien, Neytiri, played by Zoe Saldana, and cannot understand her - and neither can viewers unable to read Chinese characters. Usually films shown in the city display both Chinese and English subtitles in situations where another language is introduced.