Sunday, July 30, 2006
The Hospital related articles:
A Taste at the Top of the Tower
Source: http://www.gio-media.com.tw/newsletter/focus/focus0032.jsp
(thanks to Blue Angel of www,yanchengxu.net for sharing)
Every doctor, from the time they all recite their medical oaths " As I enter the medical profesion, I solemnly swear that I will dedicate everthing to serve humanity, engage in medicine by reason of conscience and with dignity. and the patient's health becomes my most important consideration. " However, inside "Bae Se Ju Ta", power stuggles quietly take turns in the life of the drama cast...
In 1999, famous author Hou Wen Yong unloaded the huge Taiwanese doctor's halo which is envied by everybody. With almost a year to finish, "Bae Se Ju Ta" has became a top 2005 best-seller that it was then adapted into a TV serial, pursued from all sides under a string of meticulous performances of the cast from Director Cai Yue Xun.
Now returning fresh from his directoral beau to Taiwan's No. 1 best selling idol drama "Meteor Garden", is Cai Yue Xun planning on how to bring up the local Taiwanese drama to a higher level Asian drama? This act reprimanded NT$ 80 million to support, lasting to 9 months of filming, including a 30-man team of cameramen, lightsmen, art and costume designers, propsmen, moviemaking technicians, screenplay writer, and other production staff, and gathering a cast line up of famous young and veteran stars from Hong Kong and Taiwan. What kind of an idol drama craze will it create? Director Cai and the cast and crew awaited nine months, of not being shown yet , and except for Korea, its overseas copyright sales has already swept away all Asian territories. Upon seeing the earlier raw scenes, Japanese NHK Network has already discussed the TV rights with Director Cai, hoping " Bae Se Ju Ta" to become the first Taiwanese TV drama to be shown at the NHK channel, as well as curve a niche and make an impact on the Asian drama circles. Also, its powerful drama charm is like a stored old volcanic lava , just urgently waiting to erupt...
Very fine commercial drama
Speaking on putting weight to the drama's commercial value and recieving the veiwers' ratings, has always been Director Cai Yue Xun's target. He stressed that he himself would not film a high-end type of artistic drama not appreciated by the masses. With regards to "Bae Se Ju Ta," the director said, " I wish it would be very easy to watch and its commercial value must also be very high." Breaking though from his former restricted directorial style, Director Cai has high expectations for "Bae Se Ju Ta." Inside the drama scenes, viewers will no longer see any shadow of Director Cai's previous directorial style, as it dissolved and changed into an intense directorial style. It is a first degree trial to taste a kind of several solidly written narrative styles, following the very fine cut to differenciate while letting the viewers experience a withdrawn picture of life inside the hospital.
Since Director Cai took charge of filming Bae Se Ju Ta, "Camera shots became complex yet simple!" Looking at his conflicting statements is similar to the way he talked on his drectorial breakthrough. "It's complicated." Indicating that the whole thing changed into a fine grease and "simple" , he pointed out what the viewers like. Because the whole Bae Se Ju Ta showed the very deep human thoughts, Director Cai attempted to reflect simple movements in raising the degree of the viewer's understanding of the story. He didnt require too much serious camera shots, to let veiwers have excessive spaces to guess.
Far different than Michael Crichton in "E.R." and the Japanese version of Bae Se Ju Ta, Cai Yue Xun said that when he directed Bai Se Ju Ta he didnt apply accurate medical details at all. Neither did he used a fixed "medical drama" atmosphere. It mainly lies on the human weak points and power struggle foreplay. Because of budget and tecnical limitations, Director Cai frankly said, " As far as the overseas TV rights success, we even studied how to walk in tip toes, and also watched at what they couldnt reach behind their backs."
Seeks perfection, close to severe searching
Director Cai had always grinded people with a rigid filming style. In Bai Se Ju Ta, while it may be said that it was not polite, the very first basic requirement is that the cast must follow the real medical steps. Before the shooting started, every cast recieved large amounts of medical services trainings, to reach a true-to-life medical treatment, and prevent being the laughing stock by knowledgable people . Bai Se Ju Ta cast was all required to evenly practice the medical services by heart, comprising surgical operations, surgical postures, hand-scrubbing, first aid and so on. Even Hou Wen Yong and other doctors gave a complete and long special trainings. In addition, in order to make all the scenes more fast-faced and very fine, Director Cai Yue Xun especially imported from Japan the tailor-made doctors clothes, caps, surgical gowns and gloves, surgical equipments and so on, to attempt in filming Taiwan's most beautiful group of doctors.
On the preparation of props and filming locations, Director Cai strictly required the need for an almost near-perfect degree. He actually seek his target that usually let his filming crew thoroughly injured their brains. "I felt really very bitter when I film a drama, which ordinary local TV stations is hard to accept" For Bai Se Ju Ta, Director Cai Yue Xun directed the drama crew to adopt by the "all-Asian drama" standards in preparing props and locations.
Is Director Cai actually a lot more strict? When the drama crew was prepararing the few props for the presidential suite room in the hospital, Director Cai strictly required that the intercom "must" have real electrical switch, which the former drama group was not able to borrow. He then invited an art productions group to make one. The same day, all cast arrived at the same time. But because the director was working with the props, all had to wait at the location site for the shooting to pack -up. Director Cai said, " When the a group of crew were irresponsible, I dont have enough patience to endure. " Director Cai thought that in Taiwan, all the drama crew need to undergo re-trainings.
Cai Yue Xun really feels extremely demanding. During the shooting, he met many problems in finding location sites. With the hospital location alone, Cai Yue Xun's wife Yu Xiao Hui ran to seek and paid visit all-over Taiwan to a lot of family-owned hospitals, commercial spaces, and even do-it-yourself pre-fabricated location vanues. In the process, Director Cai is thankful to Gao Xiong City where they have 3 lakes, Xin Dian and Gen Xin hospitals for help and support, especialy Zhang's Provincial Hospital which provided their surgical room free of charge and its surgical communication facilities used in the drama scenes. Also inside the institution, to the doctors and nurses who had not always charged fees for the medical trainings of the cast. Director Cai said, " We had tried many largely up-scaled hospitals and they had not agreed to lend us at all. Luckily, there are these people to help us, otherwise, Bae Se Ju Ta will just be impossible to finish.
JK NOTE: to be continued..... more of the very long article to come.....
Roughly translated by Jerry's Kingdom. Please bear with some errors, if any. Thank you for the credits.
3:47 PM
