In Park Chan-wook’s Decision to Leave (2022), language is not just a tool for communication but a primary narrative engine and a barrier to intimacy. For Brazilian Portuguese (BR) audiences, the subtitles carry the heavy burden of translating a film where the central character, Song Seo-rae (Tang Wei), is a Chinese immigrant whose "broken" or overly formal Korean is a source of fascination and distance for the detective Hae-jun (Park Hae-il). The Role of Language as a Narrative Device
: In the original film, Seo-rae often uses archaic or literary Korean terms she learned from historical dramas. Effective BR subtitles must find equivalent "high-register" Portuguese words that feel slightly out of place in a modern context to convey her "foreigner" status without making her seem unintelligent. Cultural and Technical Challenges in PT-BR Subtitling Decision to Leave subtitles Portuguese (BR)
: Hae-jun’s speech is noted for its absolute precision, avoiding wasted words—a style that must be mirrored in the PT-BR text to maintain his characterization as a meticulous detective. In Park Chan-wook’s Decision to Leave (2022), language