Sat, Apr 07, 2018 page3

• Film adaptation of comic to revive the Japanese era

  NOSTALGIC ENTERPRISES: While ‘Scrolls of a Northern City’ is awaiting funding for a feature-length film, SET TV has announced a series about a return to the countryside

  • By Wu Po-hsuan and Sherry Hsiao / Staff reporter, with staff writer
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  Two Taiwanese comic books are to hit the screens as live-action adaptations, as part of a program to promote adaptations of works by local artists.

  Veteran animation and visual effects director Kent Chang (張永昌) has always dreamed of creating a fantasy, he said, adding that he had had his eyes set on Scrolls of a Northern City (北城百畫帖, Pei Cheng Pai Hua Tieh) by comic book artist AKRU, otherwise known as Shen Ying-chieh (沈穎杰).

  The graphic novel is a romantic fantasy set in a coffee shop in Japanese colonial-era Taipei during the reign of Japanese Emperor Showa, he said.

  

  A Japanese-era building that houses a cafe featured in the pilot for Scrolls of a Northern City is shown in a still from the project, which used 3D modeling to enhance the Japanese atmosphere of Taipei in 1935.

  Photo courtesy of Kent Chang

  Taking a multidisciplinary approach, Chang wants to turn the comic into a live-action movie, he said, adding that he has received about NT$4 million (US$137,231) in grants from a Ministry of Culture program that supports such projects.

  Taiwanese actors Chang Ting-hu (張庭瑚) and Lee Chia-ying (李佳穎) are to star in the film, Chang said.

  The main challenge of adapting the comic into a film lies in recreating the Japanese-era scenery, he said, citing his experience filming a pilot for the film.

  

  Actors and actresses pose for pictures on the set of a pilot for a film adaptation of the Taiwanese comic “Scrolls of a Northern City” on Sunday last week in front of a Japanese colonial-era building in Taipei.

  Photo provided by Kent Chang

  For example, careful archival research was needed to revive Taiwan’s first department store, the Kikumoto Department store on the intersection of what are now Taipei’s Hengyang (衡陽路) and Boai (博愛路) roads, Chang said, adding that 3D modeling the buildings is very expensive and Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) teachers had to be brought in to help the actors learn their lines.

  All of this was done in the hopes of recreating the original setting, he said.

  The team has finished filming the pilot and is awaiting funding to turn its dream into reality, he said.

  

  Taiwanese comic book artist Ruan Guang-min poses with a life-sized cardboard cutout of the protagonist from his work “Yong-jiu Grocery Store,” which Sanlih E-Television is planning to turn into a TV series, in an undated photograph in Taipei.

  Photo courtesy of Yuan-Liou Publishing Co

  Meanwhile, Sanlih E-Television (SET) has announced that it has purchased the rights to Ruan Guang-min’s (阮光民) Yong-jiu Grocery Store (用九柑仔店) and plans on turning the comic book into a television series.

  Yong-jiu Grocery Store depicts old customs and practices in rural Taiwan, and last year won the Golden Comic Awards for Best Comic for Young Adults and Comic of the Year.

  In the comic, young protagonist Chun-lung (俊龍) returns to the countryside to take over a grocery store from his ailing grandfather, and reconnects with the land and his childhood memories.

  The television series is to be produced by Lin Chih-chin (林知秦) and adapted into a screenplay by Chen Chieh-ying (陳潔瑩), the TV network said.

  Ruan looks forward to what the comic will look like on screen because the people in the story “originally only lived on paper,” he said.

  Filming is expected to begin at the end of the year, with the series to be screened from next year.
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