User talk:Colin Rowat

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To preserve the continuity of the thread, I have responded to your comment at my talk page. Best, -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 19:24, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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I refer to your edit here: [1]. I can only assume you have never been to Britain or Australia, and have no close friends from either of these countries, and also do not have a good understanding of the British Empire or military uniforms. I am Australian and I am also ex-military. The accents of the sailors are very clearly British, as are their uniforms. Even if there was some doubt over their accents, which I very much don't think there should be, Hong Kong was a British colony and Bruce Lee was opposed to the British rule in his country. It makes perfect sense for the British sailors to be there and acting in the manner that they do, and also for Bruce Lee to be depicted opposing them. Most importantly, however, the director's commentary clearly identifies the sailors as British. An article about the film in the Los Angeles Times, which is used as a source in the article, also identifies them as British; see here: [2]. The evidence they are British is overwhelming. I notice your change was made without a source, and rather just based on your own opinion. I make a habit of never editing subjects I am not extremely familiar with without a reliable source. I would encourage you to do likewise. Have a nice day. Damien Linnane (talk) 00:08, 8 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Damien. I've lived in the UK since 1994. Most of that time has been spent in the Midlands/South, and less in the North, meaning that I am more familiar with some accents than with others. As an academic, I'm used to students with a range of British accents. On this basis, I removed the word "British", as the sailors did not sound British. I've visited Australia since my teens, and have Australian friends, but have never lived there.

Before removing "British", I checked IMDB to see if there was any mention of the sailors' nationality; I didn't find them credited there. I also looked for a script that might identify them; the transcripts I see online do not typically even identify speakers; I have not purchased a proper script, though, and could not see a way of "looking inside" Jahn's book online.

Thanks for the 1992 LA Times article. I don't know its source for claiming the sailors to be British: does this come from a script, or has the author (an American who may not have much international experience?) just assumed that they were British as they were white English speakers who weren't speaking with North American accents, and because that seems to fit - for the reasons that you mention (e.g. Hong Kong as a UK holding...)?

The article does mention the name of one of the actors playing a sailor, Nick Brandon. According to [3], he is from Singapore. I'm more familiar with the Singaporean English that is spoken by people who are ethnically Chinese, so can't tell whether his accent is Anglo-Singaporean. I have yet to identify the other actors.

Trying to look for other sources, I Googled 'dragon bruce lee story sailors' and found a Quora post by [Fung], who was a Quora "top writer" in 2013 and 2014, and whose main area of writing is martial arts. While he doesn't provide too many biographic details on his Quora profile, they fit this Kent Fung: https://www.usadojo.com/kent-fung. In any case, he asserts that the sailors are Australian: like the LA Times story, he provides no evidence for his claim.

When you refer to "the directors' commentary", you mean on the DVD? If so, that would be useful to add to the Wikipedia page, which currently provides no support for the assertion that the sailors are British. This intrigues me as I don't feel that we've gotten to the bottom of it yet.

If you're interested, I'd love to work together to resolve what I understand the remaining uncertainties to be: (1) who were the other sailor actors, and where were they from? (2) does the script identify their nationality? If so, as what? (3) can we get the relevant clip from the directors' commentary into the public domain (if it's not already there)? One possibility is that they're meant to be British sailors, but that the actors aren't, but aren't trying British accents either. Another it that they are speaking with squaddie/military British accents, which aren't ones I hear a lot of in daily life. Colin Rowat (talk) 16:31, 8 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Colin, thanks for replying. I've replied in detail at the thread you started at the article's talk page. I'm not interested in trying to find out what nationality the actors were, because that's completely irrelevant. Mickey Rooney portrays I. Y. Yunioshi in the film Breakfast at Tiffany's. I.Y. Yunioshi is Japanese. Mickey Rooney is not, but that doesn't change the fact that I.Y. Yunioshi is. Likewise, even if you found out the actors who portrayed the sailors are Australian, that doesn't change the fact the their characters are British. It would be an illegal breach of copyright to put the directors commentary online (and only the film's copyright holder has the right to place it in the public domain, which I very much doubt they would be interested in doing). You can, of course, buy the DVD and listen to the director's commentary yourself, as I did after failing to find it anywhere else. If you can find a copy of the script I'd be interested in looking at it, but even on the off chance the script makes no mention of their nationality, the director identifying them as such in the commentary is more than adequate sourcing. A lack of mention in the script would not override the director identifying them as British elsewhere. I really think the most likely scenario here is that making sure the British character's had perfect British accents was not at the top of Rob Cohen's priority list. Hollywood director's unfortunately rarely seem to care much if foreign accents sound genuine or not. Damien Linnane (talk) 00:46, 9 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Also I apologise if my original message came across as condescending. To be honest I was shocked and mildly offended someone thought that accent could be Australian, and jumped to the conclusion you were probably from the American mid-west and had never left home or something. Also I assumed that because (as far as I'm concerned) the accent is clearly not Australian and it sounds vaguely British to me, that it definitely was British. If you've lived there that long and it doesn't sound British to you that certainly counts for something, but the fact remains the director was intending it to be British. Damien Linnane (talk) 02:17, 9 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]