Paul Rudd is a man of many talents, like being a brilliant actor, having an otherworldly sense of comedic timing and staying young forever. But for all his gifts, speaking Cantonese is not one of them. Allow me to explain.
Back in 2000 before Paul was Ant-Man but after he had used up his post-Clueless clout, he starred in some crazy Hong Kong action film titled Gen-Y Cops.
Going from hearthrob in Clueless to being in a random foreign action film is a wild flex but hey, when you’re an actor in Hollywood who is struggling to make ends meet you take what you’re offered, even if that offer means going over to Hong Kong and starring in some film that probably makes no sense to you.
Never mind what the film is all about, all you need to know is Paul is in it as the token white guy, he’s got blonde hair, and he speaks some god-awful Cantonese.
To non-Cantonese speakers, that would’ve sounded like complete gibberish.
To Cantonese speakers like myself, well it still sounded like complete gibberish.
Okay, to Paul’s credit his Cantonese actually makes sense (albeit barely) and
I can confirm that those subtitles are all 100% accurate. Doesn’t make his attempt less cringey though.
Joking aside, I really have to give props to the guy because learning even a few words in Cantonese is incredibly difficult due to all the weird inflections involved. The fact that Paul managed to learn his lines – albeit phonetically – at all deserves all the praise in the (acting) world.
Having said all that, I’ve got a short but important message to Paul Rudd (if he’s reading this), please do literally anything else other than speak Cantonese in a film again because listening to it was painful. Literally.