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For a long time I wanted to ask whether there is any difference between 'Fist of legend' and 'Legendary Fist', the first being the name of "Jing wu ying xiong" (original title) starring Jet Li.

The movie is 2 decades old but it is still vivid, I wonder why the translators chose 'of' approach, really why? And do these twos represent one thing or there are some nuances.

Also, is above situation the same as:

'Heart of (a) lion' vs 'Lion/lionesque heart'?

And to go deeper, can we coin 'Legendfist' after the "Richard the Lionheart" taking into account 'Ironfist' movie (a.k.a. 'Under the Gun') too?

This 'of' constructions did hit me in Zarathustra's book as well: "pure of eye, and no loathing lurking", in-here going farther as a variant of eye of pureness/purity.

Add-on:

I did my own investigation just to get more confused. The reason, putting in the mix one more movie translated as Legend of the Fist!!! How this wording fits in the whole picture, NO IDEA!

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First off, the sequel spans 38 years from 1972 to 2010.

Probably translators followed the pattern of 1972's Fist of Fury, Fist of Legend being a remake (1994). Both movies have the first two kanjis identical - 精武門 vs 精武英雄

  • The first two kanjis are 'Jing Wu' which is the name of the famous Chinese martial arts school.

  • The third kanji in Fist of Fury is 'GATE' thus 'Jing Wu Gate'.

  • The third and fourth kanjis in Fist of Legend are 'Fine&Military' meaning 'HERO' thus 'Jing Wu Hero', by the way Jet Li's movie 'Hero' has the same two kanjis 英雄.

Three beloved actors did these three movies (in chronological order): Bruce Lee, Jet Li, Donnie Yen. Another remake was released in 2010 as Legend of the Fist a.k.a. 'The Return of Chen Zhen'.

Again translators threw dust in my eyes, the original name is 精武風雲 factored to:

  • The first two kanjis are 'Jing Wu', again.

  • The third and fourth kanjis in Legend of the Fist are 'WIND&CLOUD' thus 'Jing Wu Storm', because AFAK Chinese denote 'storm' as 'wind&cloud'.

Hope someone will shed light on GATE-HERO-STORM triad and where the LEGEND came from.

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  • 1
    Use more existing words. Even native speakers can't reliably predict how any given neologism will be received. By which I mean not only that people may not understand whatever precise sense you want to convey - they may also come to undesirable conclusions about your ability to communicate effectively in English (regardless of whether they understand you correctly or not). As a rule, neologisms are best left to (competent) native speakers.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Jan 28, 2015 at 22:30
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    I don't say you "pollute" English - for all I know in any given context I might find one of your neologisms witty, charming, or otherwise apt. But bear in mind that movie titles are often not really "English" as such anyway. I've actually watched Oldboy (not that I think much of it), but I don't know why it's called that. Probably because the juxtaposition of those two words works in Japanese, but it doesn't do anything for me as a native speaker. (Then again, Japan might well be the primary target audience anyway. :)
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Jan 28, 2015 at 22:47
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is about language translation and entertainment title determination, not about learning English.
    – user3169
    Commented Jan 29, 2015 at 0:16
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    @Georgi - If you feel like the question should not have been closed, please address that issue constructively by asking a question in meta, not by insulting the community and engaging in name-calling. As for your question here, one can say NOUN OF NOUN, or say ADJ NOUN, and they pretty much mean the same thing (Furious Fist vs Fist of Fury, Pure Eye vs Eye of Purity, etc.). That much is an English question, but why a movie producer may choose one over the other for a film title is not really on-topic here; perhaps you could ask that on Movies & TV.
    – J.R. ♦
    Commented Jan 29, 2015 at 9:04
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    Well, I hope you can see it's not so much a matter of your "interacting style" seeming "weird" - it's more that the specific issues raised in your question aren't suitable for a Q&A site like this. There probably aren't any "answers", such as would suit the ELU model. But you might find a forum or discussion board where people could kick ideas around. And if you ever want to explore actual English usage (as opposed to translations, global marketing, or international linguistic crossovers), you know where to find us! :)
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Jan 30, 2015 at 22:27

1 Answer 1

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In these titles of serves to emphasize.

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  • You mean Fist of Fury sounds stronger than Furious Fist, is it so? My personal translation (following the pattern of official names) is Fist of Storm speaking of Legend of the Fist. But my personal preference leans to the new coinage - Stormfist. Anyway, I hear for the first time of such strengthifier.
    – Georgi
    Commented Jan 28, 2015 at 22:05
  • Aha, well I was referring to the word "of" not your preference but I see why you would think so. [Replace "strengthifier" with "enhancer". It's not a real word.]
    – Tejana Lionel
    Commented Jan 28, 2015 at 22:13
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    It serves to emphasize what exactly? Would you elaborate?
    – ColleenV
    Commented Jan 28, 2015 at 22:31
  • It really confuses me how easily some words are targeted as garbage, we have 'strengthify' similarly to 'purify', why you discard it when we have 'purifier'? How to derive the noun out of 'strengthen(s)' - the transitive verb?!
    – Georgi
    Commented Jan 28, 2015 at 22:34
  • Never mind, just found 'strengthenER' is in official usage, yet, my question remains, why 'strengthifier' is not a real word? We have 'amplify/amplifier', who decides what is good and what not, patterns are all there just the choice is left to the users/choosers, no?
    – Georgi
    Commented Jan 28, 2015 at 22:44

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