(Meaning not a Cantonese-to-Mandarin dub or vice versa. But a Mandarin-to-different-Mandarin-Voice dub).
And then I remembered back to Princess Returning Pearl where they dubbed Ruby's voice but left Vicki's alone.
At first I didn't understand why they did that because Ruby speaks Mandarin...but then I realized that the dubbed voice was more "elegant" then Ruby's natural voice and so it fit the role of Ziwei more.
(Just wanted to add that I'm not bashing Ruby. I loved her role in Duke of Mount Deer and the Ziwei-voice would not have worked in that role).
So that leads to a very interesting thing is that theses actors and actresses aren't really acting by themselves...instead it's a combination of their looks, expressions, and other voice actors.
And these voice actors are sometimes even better than the real actors in terms of expressing emotion, tonal qualities, and pacing.
If you watch the trailer above, the actress who portrays Wen Qiang has a deeper, breathier voice and when she was saying her lines, her pacing felt off. But the dubbed voice was lighter and I felt it conveyed more emotion.
Anyway, it's just fascinates me that dubbing is such in integral part of the process.
It's like the directors will be looking for a "face" for the character along with a "voice" as well.
I wonde if this is more prominent in Taiwanese productions and HK ones (with the Cantonese-to-Mandarin) because it seems like the Chinese productions for the most part use the actors real voices.
Also, I've seen quite a few Korean dramas that were dubbed in Mandarin and I gotta say that I'm very impressed by the quality. The voices they chose along with the timing was perfect. In some cases I didn't even realize it was dubbed!
Which leads to wonder why they don't dub Japanese dramas. And if Korea or Japan dubs any Chinese dramas?
Anyway, long post I know, just thought it was interesting
