The Cantonese translation of the film Widows seems to be translated:


What is 剋 doing here?

The only reference I can find to it in dictionaries is in Words.HK which says:

to work against; to counteract

hak1 fu1
(of women) to bring extremely bad luck to the husband; or more specifically, have one's husband destined to die soon after marriage

keoi5 jat1 ceot1 sai3 zau6 hak1 sei2 zo2 keoi5 aa3 maa1.
As soon as he was born, he has destined to mourn his mother's death.

But that doesn’t seem to fit the film translation title, unless they’re insinuating that the women caused their own widowedhood, which contracts the synopsis:

their criminal husbands are killed on a botched job

Any ideas?


剋 and 黑 are pronounced the same in Cantonese

剋·寡婦 is a wordplay of a common term 黑寡婦 (Black widow: 1. A woman who murders her husband(s) 2. a kind of spider) And as the title implied, it is about a widow who has 剋夫命 (Be accused of bringing bad luck that cause her husband to die)

Chinese rarely translate foreign movies titles word for word. More often than not, the Chinese writer would totally ignore the original title, and make a new one in Chinese to attract Chinese viewers.

Some good example:

Meet the Fockers --> 非常外父智擒霍老爺 (sounds funny)

Wedding Crashers --> 冒牌伴郎智擒姊妹團 (sounds funny)

Mackenna's Gold --> 神龍猛虎闖金關 (sounds heroic)

Sound of Music --> 仙樂飄處處聞 (sounds poetic)

The Longest Day --> 碧血長天 (sounds epic)

The Greatest Show On Earth --> 馬戲千秋 (sounds epic)

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