Turning on subtitles while you’re watching a foreign film can be annoying because you miss half the movie, and who wants to read? This is why we have voice actors … and if you get the English dub of the Chinese animated film “Goodbye Monster,” you’re going to hear some SoFlo voices.
Mauriett Chayeb (as Jiu Wei, voice): “And I want to see the man you used to be. The one who saved me.”
Christian Vandepas (as Bai Ze, voice): “That’s why the dark spirit must be conquered.”
We all need to conquer our inner dark spirit, which is what “Goodbye Monster” is all about. It follows a doctor who accidentally blows up his home island while trying to save it from a shadow.
Character in “Goodbye Monster”: “You’re hereby banned from practicing medicine.”
Originally made in Chinese, the animated movie just hit the U.S., and the English version was voiced by some local actors from the 305.
Mauriett Chayeb, actor voicing Jiu Wei: “It is such a powerful moment when you get to see your voice connected with this animation.”
Mauriett Chayeb (as Jiu Wei, voice): “Do you want things to be fair? Or do you want to be a good doctor?”
Mauriett Chayeb: “I am Jiu Wei, and I’m a nine-tailed fox, and I seem to be friends with a crazy doctor named Bai Ze, and he goes on a journey, and I have his back.”
Playing make believe is what excites Mauriett Chayeb.
Mauriett Chayeb: “The fun part about being a voice actor is that you can be something bigger than what you really are. So, like, my human shell, I don’t do a lot, but as a voice, like, I can fight.”
Mauriett Chayeb (as Jiu Wei, voice): “Unfold!”
Christian Vandepas plays the main character, Bai Ze.
Christian Vandepas: “As a voiceover dubbing actor, is to really just breathe with the character, ’cause it’s not just speaking the lines. We really take on the character, breathe with them. Any reactions they do, any stuttering, anything like that, we replicate that. A lot of people don’t actually know just how much voiceover dubbing is done in South Florida.”
Christian Vandepas (as Bai Ze, voice): “Well, yeah. You know there’s no sickness in this world that I can’t successfully treat.”
At Centauro Dubbing Studio in Virginia Gardens, their specialty is working with different languages.
Andrea Nieto, Managing Director, Centauro Dubbing Studio: “The language that we’re doing it into has to be as good as the original language. And in this case, with ‘Goodbye Monster,’ it’s such an amazing film that we knew that we had to put all our efforts so that the English version was as good as the original.”
The flick is out now on digital, DVD and Blu-ray.
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