Research on the quality of localization of movie titles

The aim of the study

Find out:

1. How similar are Russian titles and original titles in general?
2. Is it possible to split dissimilar pairs (Russian title :: original title) into groups according to the root cause?

Results

I've described the results in medium article Research on the quality of localization of movie titles. Here you can read more about data preprocessing and approach for comparing titles on different languages.

Now, let's recap the results:
Q: How similar are Russian titles and original titles in general? A: In general, the titles are somewhat similar (the title similarity distribution is left-skewed).
Q: Is it possible to split dissimilar pairs (Russian title :: original title) into groups according to the root cause?
A: Average similarity is equal to 0.73 (median is 0.78)

Several causes of dissimilarity:

1. Russian title is a cropped version of original title
   Another problem in this case can be the fact that embeddings don't work very well with proper names like Borat :: Борат, Dolittle :: Дулиттл, and so on.

   Examples:

   • Борат (Borat) :: Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
   • Веном 2 (Venom 2) :: Venom: Let There Be Carnage
   • Бёрдмэн (Birdman) :: Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
   • Амели (Amelie) :: Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain

2. Russian title is an extended version of original title
   Remark about proper names applies to this case too.

   Examples:

   • Удивительное путешествие доктора Дулиттла (The Amazing Journey of Doctor Dolittle) :: Dolittle
   • Пол: Секретный материальчик (Paul: Secret material) :: Paul
   • Рапунцель: Запутанная история (Rapunzel: Tangled) :: Tangled

3. Russian title was localized (made up) by translators/localizers
   Sometimes it is better to localize the title due to cultural and other peculiarities, but sometimes it goes too far.

   Examples:

   • Невероятный мир глазами Энцо (Incredible world through the eyes of Enzo) :: The Art of Racing in the Rain
   • Человек, который изменил всё (The man who changed everything) :: Moneyball
   • Области тьмы (Areas of darkness) :: Limitless
   • Одинокий волк (Lone wolf) :: Clean

Code

• Notebook
• Utils