Unidentified Gengo Odaka dubber
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Well, let's not waste too much time wondering. Let's get down to work and see if we can find the answer.
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„
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— Dr. Paul Stewart in The War of the Gargantuas, voiced by the unidentified dubber |
An unidentified film dubber, best known in kaiju circles for his role as Gengo Odaka in the English dub of Godzilla vs. Gigan, was active in Hong Kong from the mid 1960s to early 1970s. Highly prolific, he has 34 confirmed roles between 1965 and 1973.[1]
Gengo's dubber has a baritone range and a demonstrably Canadian accent. He first appeared in dubs attributed to Ted Thomas's group, where he was often cast as the hero's voice. Starting in 1967 with Thomas's dub of The One-Armed Swordsman, the dubber appeared to become the primary English voice of Jimmy Wang Yu in his remaining Shaw Brothers productions, for which the dubber is most associated in martial arts circles.[2] By late 1970 and through 1971, he dubbed exclusively for a film dubbing group operated by Thomas's former scriptwriter and possible film dubber Bob Toole. In early 1972 he briefly returned to Thomas's group, after which he abruptly stopped being a regular dubber. His voice has not been confirmed in any dubs made since 1973.
As of 2025, all known Hong Kong dubbing personnel active in the mid 1960s to the early 1970s have either been ruled out or become weak candidates for the identity of the unknown film dubber.
Potential identity
Overview
The unidentified dubber's most common pronunciations of certain words—like "again" as /əˈɡeɪn/,[3] against as /əˈɡeɪnst/,[4], sorry as /ˈsɔɹ.i/,[5] and tomorrow as /təˈmɔɹoʊ/[6][7]—his rhoticity, and his raising of diphthongs all point to his accent being Canadian in origin. He did use alternate pronunciations in certain dubs, however, such as now and again as /ˈnaʊ/ and /əˈɡen/ in Godzilla vs. Hedorah.[8] On rare occasions, the dubber stuttered.[9]
The dubber worked in Hong Kong, beginning no later than 1965 and lasting until at least 1973, and was at various points associated with the groups of both Ted Thomas and Bob Toole. It is unknown when he arrived in Hong Kong, though he is not heard in any of Thomas's dubs from 1963 or 1964.
On July 22, 1966, the English-language Singaporean newspaper the Straits Times advertised showtimes for the 1965 Toho film The Retreat from Kiska;[10] this is a film Toho offered in an English-dubbed version,[11] and in the available English export trailer, it is evident that the film was dubbed by Ted Thomas's group, with at least one role by the unidentified dubber.[12] The advertisement noted only the presence of Chinese subtitles; in the context of theatrical movie advertisements in this English-language newspaper, this meant that the film was shown with an English soundtrack. Because the export trailer features the voice of Ted Thomas - who was not in Hong Kong for much of 1966[13] - the English dub of this film can be confidently dated to no later than 1965.
It is unlikely that the unidentified dubber departed from Hong Kong for significant periods, if at all, from 1965 to mid-1970, as he consistently appeared in the two dozen known dubs recorded by Thomas's group during this time. Prior to appearing in a series of dubs by Toole's group, the dubber's last-known work during his prolific period with Thomas was the dub for Crimson Bat-Oichi: Wanted, Dead or Alive, which must have been recorded sometime between the film's domestic release on April 8, 1970, and the dub's first attestation that July.[14]
The unidentified dubber then appeared exclusively in dubs attributed to Toole's group; only four are currently available, which were recorded between December 1970 and October 1971. Coincidentally, no dubs by Thomas's group can be definitively dated to the second half of 1970, and between February and October 1971, Thomas was away from Hong Kong, a time during which his group appeared to be inactive.[15]
The unidentified dubber returned to Thomas's group by early 1972, but by the middle of the year, his voice abruptly stopped appearing in dubs. His last-known role overall, and only work known later than mid-1972, is Thomas's dub of the 1973 film The Awaken Punch; this is a dub that can be dated to the middle of that year due to an English language newspaper advertisement in Guam from October, five months after its domestic release in Hong Kong.[16]
It may be the case that this individual had never dubbed outside of Hong Kong, as Saul Lockhart is the only of his colleagues known to have done so (specifically in Paris, France).[17] A quote from another colleague, Jack Moore, may be seen as support for this: "One of the crew (who had dubbed in Paris) kept telling us what Stone-Age conditions we were working under, but the rest of us had never seen any better, and so we coped with what we had."[18]
The dubber's inconsistent pronunciation of Chinese and Japanese words may imply that he wasn't fluent in such languages, which would likely disqualify him from being a dubbing scriptwriter for Thomas, who is only known to have employed scriptwriters proficient in Chinese (Bob Toole,[19][20] Ron Oliphant,[21][22] and Graham Earnshaw[23]).
While numerous of the dubber's colleagues had backgrounds in broadcasting/communication and amateur theater, no one from these fields has been found to match the unidentified dubber's description. Thomas and many of the dubbers he employed were namely broadcasters of the government-run radio station Radio Hong Kong (RHK), whose employees were listed in Hong Kong government staff lists; none of these lists from 1965 to 1973 name any Radio Hong Kong employees who have been proven to fit the description of the unidentified dubber.
While no former dubbers have yet connected the dubber's voice to a name, Marc Toole - the son of Bob Toole - claimed in email correspondence when sent clips of the dubber "I can't pinpoint the dubber, but I feel that I know him."[24]
Arthur Solmson
Arthur Herman Solmson managed a U.S. owned-and-controlled dubbing company named Soundtrax International during at least the early 1960s; this company took credit for being the first English film dubbing company active in Hong Kong. Activity claimed by Soundtrax included dubbing films originally in Japanese as part of a contract with Shaw Brothers;[25] this is the same activity and basic timeline claimed by Ted Thomas in 2011 for the dubbing company he claimed to have founded, which Thomas also claimed was the first of its kind in Hong Kong, without ever mentioning Solmson.[26] Although Solmson "told reporters that he would be exploring the possibilities of expanding the film dubbing business in Hongkong" in 1961,[27] it is not known how much longer Solmson was involved in film dubbing. Furthermore, is not known whether Solmson was a film dubber. Genealogical data also indicates that Solmson was born in Baltimore, Maryland, with no known ties to Canada and no known ties to Hong Kong after 1961.[28]
Ted Thomas
The unidentified dubber holds the distinction of being the first person to dub Bruce Lee, specifically as the character Cheng Chao-an in his first Golden Harvest production, The Big Boss. In the 1973 article "I Was Bruce Lee's Voice," dubber Jack Moore claimed that this role belonged to a "Radio Hong Kong announcer (whose name I cannot reveal to this day),"[29] and decades later, known-Radio Hong Kong employee Ted Thomas took credit for the role.[21] However, Thomas is completely ruled out as the unidentified dubber, as he was on government leave from February 28, 1971 to October 10, 1971; this is a period during which the unidentified dubber was in Hong Kong dubbing films such as Godzilla vs. Hedorah and Lake of Dracula for Bob Toole's dub group.[30][31][32] Additionally, Moore is not even heard in Thomas's dub of The Big Boss, and therefore may not have been present during its recording sessions to personally remember who dubbed Lee in the film, or know whether the individual was a Radio Hong Kong announcer or not.
Bob Toole
Toole is unlikely to be the unidentified dubber, primarily due to the latter's Canadian accent, which Toole would have had very little chance to acquire prior to sailing to Hong Kong in January 1962. According to census records, Toole was born in Spokane, Washington, around 1935,[33] and by 1941 his family had moved to Van Nuys, California, where he spent his entire childhood.[34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44] In August 1954, after graduating from Brigham Young University, he entered the U.S. army and in 1955 became a member of the Yokohama Engineer Depot.[45] By 1957, Toole had moved back to Van Nuys,[46] and by the end of the year he had moved to Ventura, California.[47] In 1959, Toole was a student at Ventura College and claimed in a letter to the editor to have "returned from study and teaching in Hong Kong."[48] By 1961, he was a university student in London.[49][20]
Additionally, the unidentified dubber's demonstrable lack of proficiency in Chinese pronunciation is contradictory to Toole's known proficiency in the language.[19]
Jack Moore
In Moore's aforementioned article, he claimed that he voiced Lee in the dub of Way of the Dragon, explaining that he got the role because his voice "was already rather well-known as the hero's voice. (I had about a dozen movies where I did David Chiang, Lee's runner-up in the Asian super-hero stakes.)"[29][a] While the dubs in which Moore played Chiang can be dated to a period when the unidentified dubber was active—between October 1971 and 1973—the unidentified dubber's voice is not heard in any of them. On top of this, Moore states in the same article that he did not arrive in Hong Kong or begin dubbing until 1968[18] (which is later than the unidentified dubber's earliest work), and as already mentioned, he does not take credit for the unidentified dubber's role in The Big Boss.[29]
Ian Wilson
Ian Wilson is a Canadian male Hong Kong dubber who was active in Ted Thomas's dubbing group during the 1970s. While his name has not been definitively connected to a voice, Thomas described his voice as a "gruff baritone".[50] However, Wilson cannot be the unidentified dubber, as he did not begin working in Hong Kong until 1972. From 1966 to 1970, Wilson was a United Press International photographer for the Ottawa Citizen.[51][52][53][54][55] He is not known to have ever been to Hong Kong prior to 1971, when he married fellow dubber Lynne Wilson there. The couple lived in Saigon, Vietnam for the rest of the year,[56][57] in spite of the unidentified dubber's activity in Hong Kong during this time. Furthermore, in an interview conducted in 2023, an associate of the unidentified dubber named Michael Kaye did not recognize an image of Ian Wilson and stated that he never knew the couple.[58]
Nick Kendall and Rex Ellis
Besides Wilson two other male, confirmed-Canadian dubbers acted alongside the unidentified dubber: Nick Kendall and Rex Ellis. However, both of them can be ruled out as the identity of the unidentified dubber, as their time spent in Hong Kong does not match the timeline of his career; Kendall had moved back to Canada by 1970,[59] while Ellis did not move to Hong Kong until 1968[60] and began dubbing the same year, with his earliest-known role being in Goké, Body Snatcher from Hell (the dub of which is first attested to in the October 1968 UniJapan Film Quarterly[61]).
Geoffrey Weeks, Michael Kaye, and Warren Rooke
Three of Thomas's dubbers are known to have taken significant leaves: Geoffrey Weeks from November 15, 1967, to May 12, 1968;[62] Michael Kaye from September 27, 1968, to May 26, 1969;[63] and Warren Rooke from July 16, 1969, to January 22, 1970.[64] Weeks, Kaye, and Rooke are noticeably absent from dubs recorded during these respective periods, while the unidentified dubber is not, therefore ruling out all three of them.
Other Ted Thomas employees
Another male dubber from Thomas's group, Gary Sauve, is thought not to fit with the unidentified dubber's body of work due to he and wife Barbara Laney's frequent trips outside of Hong Kong to their hometown in Florida, USA.[65][66][67]
Two more, Barry Haigh and Chris Hilton, are also unlikely to be the unidentified dubber; the former has a completely different accent and demonstrates proficiency in Chinese, while the latter is not heard in any available dubs until 1970, in Crimson Bat-Oichi: Wanted, Dead or Alive. Both dubbers are also heard long after the unidentified dubber's last known appearance.
Individuals who dubbed alongside the unidentified dubber in Thomas's group but preceded his earliest known appearances include Hal Archer, unlikely to be the identity of the dubber due to his East Kansas accent,[68] and John Wallace, an Englishman who moved to London in the late 1960s and early 1970s who therefore could not have been in Hong Kong during the recording of many of the unidentified dubber's known roles.[69]
Other Bob Toole employees
In addition to Lockhart, Ellis, and Haigh, Toole's dubbing group used the voices of individuals not known to have dubbed with Thomas's group, including David Perkins, Bill Yim, and Toole's own son Marc. Though Perkins' and Yim's voices have not been definitively identified, Perkins is unlikely to be the unidentified dubber due to becoming the managing director of an Australian-owned advertising agency in Hong Kong in 1970,[70][71] while Yim can be ruled out completely due to resigning from his day job as a reporter and moving to London, England in June 1971.[72] Marc Toole, meanwhile, was prepubescent during his time dubbing for his father, and only voiced girls and young boys.[73]
Vaughan Savidge
Vaughan Savidge, who operated a dubbing group in Hong Kong, took credit for the unidentified dubber's role as Fang Kang in The One-Armed Swordsman; he cannot be the unidentified dubber, as he did not move to Hong Kong until 1972 or 1973.[74][75]
Matthew Oram
Because Matthew Oram never worked with Ted Thomas,[76] and because Oram was not active in Hong Kong film dubbing before 1972, he is ruled out as a candidate for the identity of the unknown dubber.
Selected filmography
- Note: Films' ordering and years correspond to their Japanese releases and not necessarily to their dubs' first availability.
- Gamera vs. Barugon (1966) as Onodera / narrator [voices; Ted Thomas dub]
- The War of the Gargantuas (1966) as Dr. Paul Stewart / sailor [voices; Ted Thomas dub]
- Return of Daimajin (1966) as Lord Danjo Mikoshiba [voice; Ted Thomas dub]
- Gamera vs. Gyaos (1967) as Shiro Tsutsumi [voice; Ted Thomas dub]
- Space Amoeba (1970) as Dr. Miya / Space Amoeba / narrator / narrator (trailer) [voices; Bob Toole dub]
- Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971) as Dr. Toru Yano [voice; Bob Toole dub]
- Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972) as Gengo Odaka [voice; Ted Thomas dub]
Videos
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See also
Notes
- ↑ Jack Moore's own claim of dubbing Bruce Lee is suspect due to the known English dub of Way of the Dragon instead featuring Barry Haigh in the role.
References
This is a list of references for Unidentified Gengo Odaka dubber. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: [1]
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Bibliography
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