VideoLAN VLC displays Chinese subtitle

Follow below steps to select a Unicode font so that you can view Unicode subtitles e.g. Chinese, Japanese or Korean


From the Menu bar,

1. click "Tools" -> "Preferences" (or press hold Ctrl + P)
2. at the bottom of the screen select (set Show Settings to All)
3. scroll to the bottom, click "Subtitles/OSD" under "Video"
4. then change the Text Rendering Module from "Automatic" (Default) to "Freetype2 font renderer"
5. on the left hand side, expand the "Subtitles/OSD"
6. go to "Subtitles/OSD" then scroll down to "Text renderer"
7. on the right hand side under "Font" choose an Unicode font e.g. Microsoft JhengHei for Chinese
8. press Save to save VLC settings
9. restart VLC after that to make sure changes are enabled

You can now open a video, then click "Subtitle" -> "Add subtitle file"

you can add multiple subtitle files for the same video and switch between different subtitles.