Poor translation

[Maciamo]

I think you've understood me grza. I never said there was a better translation.

There are thousands of idiomatic expressions in English that are never used or no more used. The problem with 猿も木から落ちる is that it's a proverb, like "when the cat is away the mice will play", for instance. But it sounds so strange to use such proverbs in films and Japanese language clearly doen't use much "imaged" expressions that aren't proverbial. If you say "it's pouring with rain" or "it's pelting". These aren't proverbs at all. The English proverb would be "it's raining cats and dogs". The meaning expressed is the same however. There is a way of saying it in Japanese 土砂降りだ "doshafuri da", which is literally "it's raining earth and rocks". Otherwise we have to use adverbs to describe how it's raining. So, "it's pelting" becomes : 雨が　激し・猛烈に　降ってる　ame ga hageshiku/mourestsu futteru (lit. "it's raining violently") or　雨がひど�_降ってる ame ga hidoku futteru (lit. "it's raining horribly"). In this particular case (rain), there are translation in Japanese, eventhough they aren't as idiomatic. You can say it's raining hard or heavily, but not really pouring or pelting. But if for common things like rain (and Japan gets a lot of it) there already aren't any idioms, it's needless to say that more complexed, psychological or cultural things have absolutely no translation. Often, just finding a word (not a full expression) can be pretty defying in Japanese. Look at these.

There is no discrimination between these words in Japanese :

and/with : to
beautiful/clean/tidy : kirei
dirty/messy : kitanai
quick/early : hayai
slow/late : osoi
up/upstairs/top/on/above : ue
down/downstairs/bottom/under/below/beneath : shita
in/into/inside/indoors/interior : naka
out/out of/outside/outdoors/exterior : soto

There is no word for :

without
never
on (any surface, not only horizontal, for ex. "on the wall/ceiling")
during : no aida, -chuu, ...

Japanes usually don't make the difference between thunder and lightning (雷　kaminari), eventhough there kanji conpound for them. The word for "usually, generally, commonly, normally" (taitei たいてい) is scarcely used. Japanese prefer using いつも itsumo ("always") eventhough they would not always do sth. Even if there are words, they don't use them. They prefer vagueness and the eternal repetition of the same words (maybe that's their conformist way of thinking) to precision and originality we value in Western languages.

There is no proper for word dwarf, just "little person" (子人 kohito) and most words are built similarily by putting an adjective kanji with a noun kanji. That makes the language sounds rather childish (many an explanation to Japanese cuteness ?). I shouldn't complain as it makes it easier for foreigners to understand Japanese.

I guess you'll find loads of other examples by yourself as well.
(Really, I can't make a sentence without finding one : loads of, legions of, numerous, plenty of, a lot of, lots of, much, many, etc. all translate by た�_さん　takusan or　多数 tasuu ("a big number of"); no idioms, no discrimination in meaning).