Because of my audio processing disorder, I read lips often and, even though I don't speak either language, I find it very distracting when the sounds don't match lips. Not to mention, the background sounds that always get overamplified in post-production dubbing.

I understand what they were going for, using the language of the time and place, but I don't actually think it was necessary or adds anything meaning to the story. Suspension of disbelief.

mysans:

Because of my audio processing disorder, I read lips often and, even though I don't speak either language, I find it very distracting when the sounds don't match lips. Not to mention, the background sounds that always get overamplified in post-production dubbing.

I understand what they were going for, using the language of the time and place, but I don't actually think it was necessary or adds anything meaning to the story. Suspension of disbelief.

I think the decision was to add to the atmosphere, as there is an audio drama already made of the series in Mandarin, I think the production company wanted to use Cantonese as a way to distinguish itself from prior adaptations.

Wasabi:

Poll / Discussion

For those currently watching, I’m curious does the voice dubbing affect your viewing experience? 

1. Yes

2. No

If so, do you speak Mandarin, Cantonese, Both, or Neither?

Yes. I grew up speaking both Cantonese and Mandarin with Canto being my first language. Liuyi and Chusan's Cantonese is proper but I do take issue with the accents of the dubbers for Xiao Ma and Dong Dong where it was so bad at times that I had to read the English sub to understand them. It almost made me drop the drama after the first episode but thank goodness I stayed on because it got so good that I was able to look past that.

There had to be a reason for hiring dubbers with accents (not like they couldn't find native Canto dubbers from all of mainland and HK for the drama). Maybe accents are trending now in HK for one reason or another?