Advertisement
Adam Kane Gets Educated on Formosa Betrayed
When Adam Kane signed on to direct his feature film debut, Formosa Betrayed, he had the same knowledge of the China-Taiwan dispute as your average American—pretty limited. By the time the film was finished, he could have written a book on the topic.
Inspired by actual events, Formosa Betrayed features James Van Der Beek as an FBI agent investigating a murder at an American college campus. As his investigation deepens, he finds himself in Taiwan, unearthing what seems to be a string of crimes committed by one government that connects back to his original case.
In nearly every story worth telling there’s a struggle between right and wrong, and the best the film industry has to offer recognizes these struggles and turns them into something worth watching. Though Kane has won awards as a cinematographer on “Heroes” and a director of the short film The Fix, his first feature-length effort brought entirely new challenges and dilemmas. From replicating Bangkok for Taiwan to casting James Van Der Beek in the lead just a few days before shooting, Formosa Betrayed is the enjoyable result of endless crunch-time, gut decisions.
Kane took the time to tell MovieMaker about those very decisions—decisions that collectively helped make Formosa Betrayed a reality and have brought relevance to a story that’s gone untold for far too long.
Michael Walsh (MM): Before signing on to direct Formosa Betrayed, was the issue of Taiwanese independence and their struggles with China a story that you were personally interested in, or did that develop after you became the director?
Adam Kane (AK): I first found out about the story in talking with Dave Cluck, one of the movie’s producers. I didn’t really know any history behind the subject. The more I talked with him and [writer-producer-actor] Will Tiao, the more I became fascinated with these people trying to reclaim their own identity. There have been other movies made about this, like The Killing Fields and Missing. Both certainly have touched on the subject of people struggling against a dictatorial government, but I hadn’t really heard anything in the past about Taiwan and their struggle with China, and it just wasn’t something that had been unearthed in my education growing up in California.
MM: This being your first directorial effort on a feature-length film, what challenges came about that you never experienced directing shorts and television programs before?
AK: Working on a feature is a global responsibility for a director, especially with our film being on two continents and in two countries, with crews that spoke different languages. Part of the challenge for me was being able to prepare both the Chicago and the Bangkok crews to shoot at the same time. We were flying back and forth a lot, doing pre-production in Bangkok while we were setting up in Chicago. We shot the Chicago stuff first, so keeping everybody going with the Bangkok work was really the biggest challenge we had.
MM: What went into the decision to shoot in Bangkok, as opposed to shooting in Taiwan where the film took place?
AK: We looked at both Taiwan and Bangkok on the initial scout, and there were a couple factors that brought us to Bangkok. First, Taiwan looks very, very different than it did in the ‘80s. The country’s quite rich and it’s done very well for itself. It’s because of the infrastructure that was set up by the Japanese in the early part of the 20th century that allowed it to become so prosperous. They’re one of the world’s largest producers of semiconductors. With your phone and your television set, the semiconductors in them are probably made in Taiwan, and due to this the city has refaced itself several times. So it doesn’t look anything like it did back in the ‘80s. And Bangkok, ironically—or oddly—looks much more like Taiwan did during that time period.
Also, there’s a massive filming infrastructure already in place in Bangkok. They’ve got their own film laboratories, several different camera houses and a lot of different crews. That was important. Thirdly, we were concerned that some of the political elements in the film would be sensitive, especially in today’s news with Obama having just made this $6 billion arms deal with Taiwan, inciting the Chinese. We were concerned that with some of the events we portray in the movie… we might get some resistance—and being a small film, we thought that if we were shut down, we wouldn’t be able to recover from that.
MM: Do you feel that anything else in the film and Will Tiao’s story has a cultural impact and relevance in today’s political landscape and our relationships overseas?
AK: Absolutely. More than any other topic for China and Taiwan, this issue of Taiwan splitting off and becoming independent is the biggest culture issue that exists in their society today, and America’s place in that is very complicated. We have the One-China policy that was set up by Richard Nixon in the early ‘70s, which says that we the United States recognize China and Taiwan as one country. But we also have something called the Taiwan Relations Act, which says that in the event of an attack, we’d be obligated to defend Taiwan—but the only country that would attack Taiwan is China. So it’s a very complicated situation, and therefore every time that this subject comes up, whether it’s in the media or in a film like this, it becomes a very sticky talking point. There’s a bit of a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that exists with most Taiwanese people, which is to say that these countries have pretty much been at peace for the last 15 or 20 years since democracy has been set up there, and if no one talks about becoming independent then nobody gets upset.
MM: Which is so important with China still to this day having missiles pointed at Taiwan.
1 of 2 |
Digg
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Del.icio.us
Reddit
YahooAdvertisement
COMMENTS | POST A COMMENT 
- Comment by kc on 2/28/10 at 12:28 pm
This is a correction to Adam Kane’s one particular comment about “recognition”. The USA One-China policy ACKNOWLEDGES China’s position that there is one china and that Taiwan is part of it. It DOES NOT recognize that Taiwan is part of China. There is a distinction deliberately constructed by the USA side in its approach to china. The Taiwan Relations Act remains as USA law! Also Taiwan is not “seceding” because Taiwan has been governed separately from China for the past 61 years since 1949 and was part of the empire of Japan for 50 years from 1895 to 1945. The Nationalist Chinese govt controlled Taiwan militarily from 1945 to 1949 from China itself before losing its civil war with the communists. The problem within Taiwan is the KMT Nationalist Chinese party and govt still consider itself govt of “all of China including indpt Mongolia, Tibet, and Taiwan” at the expense and wishes of the Taiwanese people. And then the communists in Beijing recognized as China claims Taiwan as its own without the consent of the Taiwanese people. This movie tells one aspect of the struggles of the Taiwanese people for freedom and identity. Taiwan does not belong to China--neither communist PRC and nor Republic of China based on its archaic and foolish constitution while on Taiwan. Taiwan is a free and independent nation.
- Comment by Fethiye on 7/09/10 at 2:20 am
Thanks my frend.
- Comment by apparel connect on 2/17/11 at 4:05 am
Thanks fior the article. How does the taiwanese situation differ from hong kong now? thanks (
website design bangkok
posted 05.25.12
posted 05.22.12
posted 05.15.12
SITE DELIVERY OPTIONS
