Silence: an attempt to improve Taiwanese drama

This is by far the longest movie marathon I did. I watched 16 episodes in one sitting, which also meant a total of 16 hours of staring at the television with a minimal 30-minute break for lunch and do household chores, but that’s it.

For the record, Silence is the first Taiwanese series I have marathon-ed (if there is such a word) and I initially got hooked.
 
Silence is a 20-episode Taiwanese television drama series that features Asian cast, which includes Park Eun-Hye (Dae Jang Geum, South Korea), pop singers Andy Hui (Hong Kong) and Megan Lai, and Vic Zhou (F4, Poor Prince, Mars). Directed by Angie Cai (producer of Meteor Garden), the plot starts with two kids who were brought to a hospital, both meeting an accident. Qi WeiYi was to have his left leg placed in a cast while Zhao ShenShen suddenly lost her voice as a sign of trauma. Both discovered a secret passageway that led to an air raid shelter, and thus starting the friendship. Given that ShenShen could not speak, the two communicated by writing to each other . They promised to meet again on Christmas Day of 2006 to open the letters they had written for each other. However, just a week after their first meeting, WeiYi was sent back to London and both lost contact with each other.

Thirteen years later, WeiYi becomes the general manager of a multi-national company. Notorious for being cold and cruel, WeiYi fired a senior employee who happens to be Shenshen’s surrogate father and whose son, ZuoJun took responsible of the accident that made Shenshen lose her voice. Because of ShenShen’s sense of justice, she marched up to WeiYi to defend her surrogate father. In spite of the intention and her being mute, the situation led WeiYi to appreciate life and ended up falling for her without knowing that she is his friend from the hospital.

Plot complicates when WeiYi was diagnosed with liver cancer, to live only for three months more. He also then discovered that ShenShen is his childhood friend. At first, he tried to hide his identity and pushed her away by taking into consideration that ZuoJun is in love with her. However, the two eventually ended up being together until WeiYi breathed his last.

What makes this series really interesting is the use of sign language. Knowing that Park Eun-Hye could not speak Mandarin, she portrayed a mute half-Korean girl that communicates either by writing or by sign language. It is worthy to note that ShenShen uses Korean characters, and yet WeiYi still manages to understand her. (This can be credited from having the same origin, the ancient Chinese characters. Physically different, any member of the Mongolian race can understand different forms of the written Chinese characters and get the same meaning.)

Unlike Korean dramas that posit the idea that a character can be both a protagonist and an antagonist  at the same time and things can not always be perfect (e.g. Full House, South Korea), the characters in this story remains on only one side of the dichotomy. However, it manages to play up the same sense of sympathy or normalcy of human reaction as any other series would.

The most deprived character in the series would be Mi Xiao Guang (Megan Lai, Taiwan), Qi Weiyi’s fiancé. Even if WeiYi breaks off from their engagement, Xiao Guang pursues him still until she eventually learned that her only way of loving WeiYi is letting him be with the woman he loves.

Huang Zhi Ye, nicknamed Yellow (Kingone, Taiwan), the guy who loved Xiao Guang but never won her is another deprived character and may receive sympathy from the audience.

The character audience would most likely hate to is ZuoJun, the man behind the long chase between WeiYi and Shenshen. Almost selfish and inconsiderate, he forcibly did not give Shenshen up even long after he found out WeiYi was dying.

In line with the actors’ performance, it was not as efficient. Comparing Vic Zhou from Kwon Sang Woo (Stairway to Heaven and Sad Love Song, South Korea), there was lesser crying even if the situations were considerable heartbreaking. Take for instance episode 18 where WeiYi videotaped himself telling his mom that he does not want to die, considering how happy he is with ShenShen, and episode 19 where ShenShen decided to leave him. WeiYi will be seen here dejected, almost teary eyed, singing but parting very minimal emotion to the audience.

It must be credited though that Vic Zhou showed some improvement in his acting compared when he was doing roles in Meteor Garden and Love Storm (Taiwan). However, he remained quite as stiff as if he did not want his hair getting messed up.

Park Eun-Hye’s acting was a little substandard compared to what we saw in Dae Jang Geum where she played a role which required crying as Jang Geum’s (Leee Young Ae) best friend Lee Yeon-Saeng. It must be the mute role she has to play, or the different cultural orientation of the director handling the show. Still, she was not able to effectively portray the emotions of ShenShen during the complications and tragedy she has to endure in the show. However, remembering her smiles and other facial expressions makes her at least pass the test.

The actress that seemingly stood out is Megan Lai who played Mi Xiao Guang. Her role as the overlooked ex-fiancé was justified as she can efficiently cry, intimidate other characters, and smile in an instant the moment Xiao Guang is confronted with the other characters in the story.

It’s disappointing to note the many inconsistencies demonstrated in the drama. Specifically looking at Xu Li, she starts out as the WeiYi’s heartless secretary in Qiang Dong. When WeiYi asks her of her dream in episode 10, she then becomes the wishful dreamer that aims to give hope to orphans like her. She becomes ruthless again in episode 15 as she is revealed to be Qi Zhen Yang’s illegitimate daughter and WeiYi’s older half-sister seeking only vengeance from her covetous father. She returns to becoming an angel as she discovers that ShenShen is a member of the same Zhao family she tries to bring down the Qi family in memory of for taking care of her secretly during times of despair.

There were also some inconsistencies in terms of narration. Episode 1 starts out in ShenShen’s point of view. WeiYi becomes the narrator by episode 7 and by episode 20, the story comes from ZuoJun’s point of view.
And by narration and story flow, too much chasing happened between WeiYi and ShenShen with ZuoJun in the middle. WeiYi finds out that Shenshen is his childhood friend in episode 7 but it is until episode 12 that ShenShen discovers about his identity. The couple are together in episode 15 and goes on until episode 18 where another complications happens and they become separated again. Instead of having 20 episodes, it seems like the show can be compressed to only 10 episodes.

A considerable noteworthy scene would be when WeiYi felt pain during Huang Zhi Ye’s sister, Huang Zhi Ling’s birthday party. No one except Xiao Guang knew he has liver cancer. ShenShen saw him in pain and was quite worried. She comes close to him to check, and he embraces her in pain. No dialogues, long angle close up shot makes this scene an effective expression of emotions without the clichés.

The script was rather satisfactory and should be given credit. There were, however, times in which the lines were clichés, and farfetched analogies were used just to make it sound melodic to the ear. Still, this is far from the cheesy, trying to be poetic by using metaphors and allusions yet overstated dialogues of the typical Filipino daily dramas on television.

The simple yet best lines delivered is in episode 10 where WeiYi chases ShenShen along lakeside, challenging that her love for ZuoJun is nothing but a mere sisterly love, he, knowing that he will only be living for three months more, then makes a inappropriate proposal:

WeiYi: Let’s make a deal. Be my girlfriend for 3 months and I will give you everything you want.

Offended, ShenShen slaps him in the face and walks out.

WeiYi: three months is my everything

A very interesting and worthy to be noted technique in the series is the usage of the song Try to Remember (Four Brothers), which became the object of parallelism through the timeline in the story.

Aside from that, music was not given as much importance as in Autumn in My Heart (South Korea), which uses the techniques cross fade to signify every development in the plot.

In terms of cinematography, most of the scenes were shot in symmetry, as though elements in the frame were layers of picture frames. However, the different camera techniques were not used as much of a device to add to the portrayal of emotions of the characters, similar to JuMong (South Korea).

Devices were never used effectively in the series. While a hand sign for lucky star was used, this gesture stays just a hand sign throughout the series. The supposedly signifier-signified tandem remains as shallow as that, whereas it could move further away similar to the lavender flower was used in Lavender (Taiwan) to reflect Xun Yi Cao’s (Yi Rong Chen) life and the teddy bears in Princess Hours (South Korea) to suggest the expressed and suppressed feelings of the different characters in the story or as an object of analogy as in the four gems in Encantadia (Philippines) reflecting the political, social, personal and familial relationship of its beholders.

There were excessive flashbacks on the succession of events with the same things being shown at almost every episode. Flashback as a device then becomes an overstatement and a boredom. While flashbacks can be used over and over again, a sort of variation and development can be added as used of the raining scene where a guy and a girl meets at a sheltered staircase in Summer Scent (South Korea). Almost every episode was this scene flashed. What makes it different and very effective is that as every development in the story unfolds, little by little, this scene becomes clearer. When Shim Hye-Won discovers that her heart donor, Soh Eun-Hye is Yoo Min-Woo’s ex girlfriend, the scene is once more flashes, this time revealing Eun-Hye as the girl.

In the end, while there is too much criticism and comparison, Silence can still be credited for reflecting an improving style of drama series compared to the other Taiwanese television weeklies, but there is still work that needs to be done  to be as competent as the South Korean series is to the Western seasonal shows.

(photo credits: www.geocities.com/tjinsen/f4/silence/)