Subtitles are good

Abhishek Sainani
Movie Over Matter
Published in
3 min readDec 5, 2020

Soorarai Pottru is an excellent movie and I could watch it and understand it only because of subtitles. I enjoyed the movie so much and was so overwhelmed with emotions at the climax of the movie that I shared a Tweet that was very well received which clearly showed that many others had also immensely enjoyed the movie.

Moreover, this movie currently holds a rating of 8.8/10 on IMDb and is in top rated Indian movies on IMDb.

Yet when I recommended this movie or any other good non-Hindi or non-English movie to others, many refused to watch it because they don’t like reading subtitles while watching movie. Yes, subtitles degrade the movie watching experience but it opens the door to new ideas and cultures.

I’ve been watching south Indian movies with subtitles since my college days in Hyderabad. I’ve watched Pokiri, Bommarillu, Aruvi, Arjun Reddy, I, 1-Nenokkadine and many more in last few years. I could also watch many good foreign language movies such as Pee Mak, Shutter, Train to Busan, etc. and Anime such as Naruto, DragonBall-Z, Death Note, Code Geass etc. I am so glad that subtitles are available to watch content from other cultures, created by people with different sensibilities. This has helped me expand my thinking and appreciate other cultures.

I believe watching a show or movie in native language with subtitles is important because then you hear their original expressions in their native language. That intended sound effect won’t be same if remade or even dubbed in some other language. I have noticed this while watching South Indian movies and Anime. Moreover, Bollywood has been notorious in spoiling a potentially good remake of a money making script by modifying it too much (such as Laxmii (Bollywood), a remake of Kanchana (Tamil language movie)). I experienced this while watching Wanted, which is a remake of a Telugu movie, Pokiri. This is the reason I didn’t watch the remake of my favorite south Indian movies such as Vikramarkudu (remade as Rowdy Rathore) and Arjun Reddy (remade as Kabir Singh). Good remakes are rare (such as Drishyam (remade from Malayalam movie Drishyam) and Ghajini (remade from Tamil movie Ghajini)), good dubbing in Hindi is also not very common (Baahubali and K.G.F.). Even Soorarai Pottru is dubbed in four South Indian languages but since it is not dubbed in Hindi, I hope Bollywood doesn’t try to remake it into something inferior without retaining the essence. If most people watch movies like Soorarai Pottru with subtitles, then there’s less incentive for producers to remake (and spoil) a good movie.

I am immensely grateful to the effort taken by people in creating subtitles because subtitles has helped me watch racy English shows such as House M.D., Office and Sherlock Holmes, British humor shows such as Blackadder, South Indian movies such as Anniyan and Arya series, Anime such as Naruto and Asian movies such as Pee Mak and Shutter Island. I recommend you to utilize the power of subtitles and unlock access to rest of humanity!

In conclusion, never hold back on good experiences (good movies) due to some small inconveniences (reading subtitles).

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Abhishek Sainani
Movie Over Matter

An aspiring writer who often juggles between his inner world, his dream world, and the real world. Writes poetry, humorous observations and opinion pieces.