The Art of the Title: One Film, Seventeen Names

By Pea | March 22, 2026

Wanjiu Jihua — 《挽救计划》, "Rescue Plan." Four characters, two actions: rescue, and plan.

Chinese readers most likely know the name Andy Weir; he wrote The Martian, which here is called 《火星救援》 ("Mars Rescue"). Both books are published in China by Yilin Press, and set side by side the two Chinese titles look like a matched set: one action, one object, no sentiment, no spoilers.

But those four characters weren't translated. They were decided.

The English title is Project Hail Mary. Rendered word for word it would come out as something like 万福玛利亚计划 ("Hail Mary Project") — which explains almost nothing. The Chinese edition didn't take that road. It threw out the entire metaphor and kept only the hardest piece of fact underneath: there is a plan, and it is going to rescue something.

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That's a judgement call. A dozen or so other markets around the world made the same call and reached different answers — and every one of those answers gives away what audiences in that place think matters most about this story.

First, what exactly was thrown out.

What "Hail Mary" Means

It is two things at once, and outside America only one of them survives.

The first layer is American football. A few seconds left on the clock, behind on the score, every play used up. The quarterback drops back and throws the ball as hard as he can toward the opposing end zone, and whether one of his own catches it is basically luck. In America that throw is called a "Hail Mary pass." The point of it isn't the prayer — it's that at this stage all you have left is the gamble.

The second layer is the Catholic Hail Mary. The prayer opens, in Latin, Ave Maria, standardly rendered in Chinese as 万福玛利亚.

In America both layers hold at once, and the first one overrides the second: an American hearing the phrase thinks first of the last-ditch attempt, with the religion functioning only as etymology. Outside America, the football layer disappears outright and only the prayer is left. Half the force of the title drains away instantly.

So every market has to answer the same question: which of the two layers do we keep? Or do we drop both and say it over again?

The Ones That Kept the Prayer

In countries with deep Catholic and Orthodox traditions, "Ave Maria" needs no explanation, and it carries a layer of musical memory besides — Schubert, Bach-Gounod, that solemn, deathbed, giving-yourself-over register. That layer happens to line up with the story.

Finland: Operaatio Ave Maria (Operation Ave Maria)
Greece: Αποστολή Χαίρε Μαρία (Mission Hail Mary)
Russia / Ukraine: Проект «Аве Мария» (Project Ave Maria)

These versions have no translation problem, because for the local audience no problem ever existed. What they kept isn't the gamble; it's the solemnity.

Sweden took the easier route: Uppdrag Hail Mary — only "Project" is swapped for the Swedish word for "mission," and the English phrase is left completely untouched. The English proficiency of Nordic readers is what lets that work.

The Ones That Said the Gamble in Plain Words

Another set of markets judged the opposite way: if the metaphor can't be rescued, don't rescue it — bring out the meaning underneath it directly.

France: Projet Dernière Chance (Project Last Chance). The French stripped the shell off entirely and kept only the core — one last chance. Interestingly, this title may state the novel's emotional situation more accurately than the English one does.
Turkey: Kurtuluş Projesi (Salvation Project / Liberation Project). Very nearly a collision with the Chinese version.
Czechia: Spasitel (Saviour). One word. No setup, no explanation — it pins the protagonist's position down outright.
Thailand: ภารกิจกู้สุริยะ (Mission to Save the Sun). The Thai version simply wrote the plot into the title — the thing being saved is the sun.
Vietnam: Thoát Khỏi Tận Thế (Escape the Apocalypse)
Azerbaijan: "Dünyanın Sonu" layihəsi ("End of the World" Project)

What this group has in common: they trust "say it clearly" more than they trust "leave them guessing."

Selling the Author, Not the Title

Germany's answer is the most businesslike: Der Astronaut (The Astronaut).

Why? Because in Germany The Martian is called Der Marsianer (The Martian). Same author, same construction — a definite article plus one noun, pointing at the man. What the German publisher is betting on isn't the title at all, it's the brand: readers don't need to understand the title, they only need to recognise "this is another one by the author from last time."

Making the Threat the Protagonist

Brazil's answer is the boldest: Devoradores de Estrelas (Star Devourers).

Every other market is naming the mission; only Brazil named the enemy. That single change shifts the genre — from a story about an engineer solving problems into cosmic horror. Same film, an entirely different door.

Simply Not Translating

Japan: プロジェクト・ヘイル・メアリー. Korea: 프로젝트 헤일메리. Both are sound-by-sound transliterations; not one word of meaning is carried across.

This isn't laziness. In the Japanese and Korean markets, a string of loanword syllables is itself the selling point: it tells the audience "this is imported, and it comes with a pedigree." They don't need to know what "Hail Mary" means, only to hear that it isn't domestic. The actual work of explaining the plot is handed off to the subtitle and the tagline — the Japanese edition stresses the all-or-nothing gamble, the Korean one stresses the survival of two civilisations.

Italy wants both: L'ultima missione: Project Hail Mary — "The Last Mission" out front to make the meaning plain, with the original English hung behind it as the shopfront.

Back to 《挽救计划》

Put the Chinese version back among those sixteen choices and its position comes clear.

It didn't go religious, and it didn't go disaster movie. What it chose was engineering.

The two characters 计划 ("plan") hold on to the Project of the original — and the bones of this story really are process: observe, hypothesise, test, fail, go again. 挽救 ("rescue") states the stakes plainly without stating the answer: rescue what? Did it work? The title doesn't tell you.

Next to the Czech version's bluntness and the Brazilian one's sensationalism, 《挽救计划》 is far more restrained. It assumes the reader will ask the next question on their own.

One Story, Seventeen Doors

A title is never the translation of a sentence. It's a judgement: what matters most about this story, for our audience, here?

The German answer is the author. The French answer is despair. The Brazilian answer is the monster. The Czech answer is one man. The Thai answer is the sun. The Japanese answer is "this one is foreign."

The Chinese answer is: there is a plan.

One story, seventeen doors. Every one of them opens.