So I noticed in Tsutaya recently that the movie The Legend of Hercules has been given the Japanese title Za Herakuresu, literally "The Hercules."

I suppose that this was done to differentiate it from the film Hercules, which is just Herakuresu in Japan — must have called dibs on the title first, even though it was released later.

Obviously, "The Hercules" would be an odd title in English for a film about Hercules himself. (It would make a fine title, though, for a Seinfeld episode about, say, Elaine sending an unwanted boyfriend on repeated "quests" in the hope that he would get sick of it and break up with her.) What I wonder is whether the za is best understood as a vestige of The Legend of — another case of spooky action on a non-constituent.

(Note also that Japan uses the Greek form of Hercules's name.)