The 2015 film *Monkey King: Hero is Back* achieved remarkable box-office success in China and globally, reflecting the film's appeal to Chinese audiences, partly due to its use of Hollywood animation technology to present a traditional Chinese story and incorporation of Chinese cultural elements. Adapted from *Journey to the West*, a classic Ming Dynasty novel, the film reimagines the story with a focus on humaneness. This paper explores the adaptation of this Chinese heroic legend for Western audiences by comparing the Mandarin and English dubbed versions, focusing on key linguistic and cultural features. The research questions are: (1) What changes reconfigure the Chinese superhero in the English dub compared to the Chinese dub? (2) What are the study's theoretical and practical contributions to Audio-Visual Translation Studies (AVT)? The study analyzes the two monolingual corpora of Chinese and English dialogues from both the films and their trailers to pinpoint typical linguistic and cultural features through comparison. The focus is on the norms and idiosyncratic language of the English dub, selected for their importance in real conversation and key role in creating naturalness in fictional dialogue, especially dubbing dialogue. While the film's success in China is well-documented, data on Western reception is scarce, prompting this investigation.

While the Chinese film *Monkey King: Hero is Back* has generated significant academic attention in China (542 research papers by August 2022), very few studies compare its different dubbed versions. One paper analyzes the Uygur-dubbed version, and five focus on subtitling practices, mostly regarding box-office success, marketing, production, aesthetics, and impact on the Chinese animation industry. Western research often explores the film's multimodal approach to reshaping the Monkey King's image, suggesting a shift from a sympathetic and responsible character in the Chinese version to a more frustrated and firm character in the English version to suit Western tastes. This paper addresses the gap by focusing on dubbing practices and their effectiveness in catering to Western audiences.

This study utilizes a theoretical framework combining macro-level translation theories and models with micro-level translation strategies. On the macro level, Even-Zohar's polysystem theory, Gutt's relevance theory, and Chesterman's causal and Pérez-González's psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic models are employed to analyze the dubbing strategies. These models consider external factors (institutionalized genres, source culture visibility) and internal factors (audience experience, knowledge, and beliefs). The polysystem theory, neurolinguistic model, and source-text-oriented translation analyze external factors, while relevance theory, causal and psycholinguistic models and target-text-oriented translation address internal factors. The neurolinguistic model is particularly relevant due to the interplay between audio and visual tracks. On the micro level, source-text-oriented (linguistic replication with minimal cultural adaptation) and target-text-oriented (cultural realignment and adaptation for the target audience) film translation strategies are assessed. The study hypothesizes that the English dub will prioritize target-text-oriented translation, favoring smooth dialogue even at the cost of idiosyncratic Chinese cultural elements. The Mandarin-dubbed version serves as the source text, and the analysis uses English back-translation for Mandarin dialogues. The study compares the Mandarin and English dubbed versions of the film and trailers, examining appellations and idiosyncratic language. The analysis considers the dynamic nature of translation, including strategies like zero-translation, neutralisation, and explication.

The analysis of the film trailers reveals a difference in approach between the Mandarin and English versions. The English trailer adds descriptive background information about the plot to aid Western audience understanding, even including a mention of Jackie Chan as the dubber, leveraging his existing popularity. The Mandarin trailer, conversely, includes additional thematic information related to freedom, dreams, and the need for heroes, reflecting a more domestically oriented message. The English trailer is longer, indicating a need for more contextual information. The comparison of appellations for Sun Wukong highlights the different approaches to conveying cultural nuances. The Mandarin dub often uses dialectal forms and metaphorical language to create humor and reflect Sun Wukong's character. The English dub often simplifies and neutralizes this, prioritizing clarity and smooth viewing. Several examples are given: Example 1 shows zero-translation, relying on visual cues; Example 2 showcases neutralisation of humorous dialect; Examples 3 and 4 illustrate explication in translating titles; Example 5 exemplifies zero-translation of a nursery rhyme, relying on visual and auditory cues; Example 6 shows how humor is maintained in English dubbing but with a shift in imagery. The analysis of idiosyncratic language shows a similar trend. The English dub often omits or generalizes idiosyncratic expressions, utilizing visual and acoustic effects to convey meaning. In general, the English dubbing prioritizes standardized, straightforward language for smoother viewing at the cost of some cultural nuances and creative wordplay from the source text.

The findings support the hypothesis that the Mandarin dub employs source-text-oriented translation, preserving cultural idiosyncrasies, while the English dub utilizes target-text-oriented translation, prioritizing audience understanding. The frequent use of standard language and strategies like zero-translation, neutralisation, and explication in the English dub reflects a focus on audience acceptance and fluency over maintaining all cultural nuances. This is consistent with the idea that translation prioritizes commercial considerations and target audience preferences. The study addresses the research questions by showing how the English dub reshapes the Chinese superhero by simplifying and standardizing language, while also clarifying cultural elements to make the story more accessible to Western audiences. The study contributes to AVT by providing a framework for analyzing dubbed versions of films, considering both macro-level theoretical models and micro-level translation strategies, filling a gap in the research on comparative analysis of different dubbed versions and the effects of target audience expectations on translation choices.

This study analyzes the English and Mandarin dubbing of *Monkey King: Hero is Back*, demonstrating how translation strategies are driven by the need to adapt a Chinese superhero for Western audiences. While the Mandarin dub embraces cultural specificity, the English dub prioritizes clarity and viewing experience, often sacrificing nuance for fluency. Future research could expand the language pairs compared and explore the interplay of dubbing and subtitling strategies. The study highlights the complex interplay between cultural adaptation, linguistic choices, and commercial demands in audiovisual translation.

The study's scope is limited to a single film and two language pairs. A broader analysis involving more films and language combinations would strengthen the generalizability of the findings. The focus on dubbing could be complemented by a simultaneous analysis of subtitling strategies for a more complete understanding of the translation process. Finally, while the study considers audience reception, more direct data on audience responses to the specific linguistic choices made in the dubs would be beneficial.