How much perseverance is needed to succeed?
Cape No. 7 is a 2008 Taiwanese film directed by Wei Te-sheng. It was his debut feature film, featuring numerous Taiwanese musicians. The film was released in Taiwan in 2008 and became the highest-grossing domestic film in the nation. It received nine nominations and won six awards at the Golden Horse Awards that year, along with several international film festival awards in the United States, Japan, France, and Malaysia.
At the time, the Taiwanese film market was in a prolonged slump, and financing was complex. Cape No. 7 was produced with a budget of just TWD50 million (approx. US$1.5 million) and gained popularity through word of mouth, becoming a miracle in Taiwanese cinema. It grossed over TWD530 million (approx. US$16.1 million), setting a domestic box office record in Taiwan. Among Chinese-language films, it ranked first in box office earnings.
Following the success of Cape No. 7, Wei Te-sheng, who was nearly 40 years old, finally witnessed such success after 15 years of struggle. However, he felt it was sheer luck and couldn’t help but tear up when recalling the help he received from many people.
He mentioned that the key to the explosive rise of South Korean cinema was the 1999 film Shiri, which surpassed Titanic at the box office in Korea. This success prompted companies to invest heavily in revitalizing Korean cinema. Since then, Wei Te-sheng had hoped for Taiwan’s Shiiri to appear. All the filmmakers were eagerly anticipating it, but he never imagined that he would be that “fish” (a reference to “shiri,” which means fish in Korean). He felt incredibly fortunate.
The gambler of cinema
“I am a gambler in cinema. Many people tell you how to do things, but they haven’t succeeded. I broke the rules and operated completely in reverse,” Wei Te-sheng said. There were no big stars when the film was about to start shooting, so he used newcomers. When there was no money, he borrowed and took loans. “Our difficulties were unknown to the crew; we had to smile and complete the work, pretending to be at ease. You cannot let the crew know you have no money; otherwise, it would be completely out of control. Now the secret is out.”
A critical person among those who helped Wei Te-sheng was his wife. She supported her husband’s dream at a crucial moment by tearfully agreeing to sign a mortgage for TWD 15 million (approx. US$0.5 million) house. Wei Te-sheng lamented: “People are like this. If I have extra, it’s okay to give it to you. But the problem is if I don’t have it and have to borrow it to give it to you, it’s like giving you everything I have… Isn’t that great enough?” He was very grateful to his wife, joking that, at the time, she might have been choosing between signing a divorce agreement and the mortgage.
Perseverance behind success
How much perseverance is needed to succeed? Wei Te-sheng said: “In my character, there is something straightforward: always thinking positively. For example, when people ask, ‘The film industry is so bad, why do you still jump in?’ I would think, can’t it get better? What if it gets better? Now, at the bottom, it means the next step is upward. Life can’t always be spring, but it can’t always be winter either, right?!”
“Since entering the industry, I have always been a failure. The few films I made did not receive positive recognition. Making films is an expensive practice, often costing millions. Earning money, borrowing money, putting it in, repaying, and borrowing again is exhausting regarding energy, physical strength, and money. There are complaints, depression, and worries, but somehow, I felt there should be a big reward behind it. This time, it was huge, hopefully not the last time.”
Wei Te-sheng once faced overwhelming pressure due to unsuccessful filming, reaching the brink of collapse amid frantic busyness and even feeling hopeless about life. At that time, he recalled filming a documentary in his youth, where he interviewed a female college student who had undergone amputation due to osteosarcoma, a rare, aggressive bone cancer that develops in bone cells and most often occurs in children and young adults. The girl was optimistic and cheerful, talking about what the children in the ward would do, as if describing everything happening in a school classroom, not as heavy and bleak as imagined, which amazed him.
Wei Te-sheng asked, “Do the children cry and fuss?” The girl replied: “They cry because it hurts, but they don’t fuss. Fussing is useless; it only makes caregivers sad and upset.” He asked again: “Do the children ever feel they can’t endure the pain and think, ‘Forget it, I’ll leave the world and become an angel?'” The girl paused for two or three seconds and said softly: “I’ve been in and out of the children’s cancer ward many times and have never seen a child who didn’t want to live.”
The children’s cancer ward is a place full of “vitality.” Every child wants to live, and every parent and medical staff does their best to save lives. This contrast inspired Wei Te-sheng to make a film on childhood cancer called Big, which opened in December 2023. Thus, the long-brewing idea finally came to fruition when his mood hit rock bottom. During the scriptwriting process, he laughed and cried, and the unstoppable tears miraculously healed his withered and depressed spirit.
He worked hard, perhaps spending millions to create a scene that might only move the audience for 10 seconds. Is it worth it? Wei Te-sheng said: “It’s worth it because the emotion in a film comes in an instant. Even if it’s only one or two seconds, those one or two seconds can move a person, and that scene will stay in someone’s heart for 10 or 20 years.”
The interviewer told him: “Giving up is always the easiest thing in the world.” But, he said: “Giving up is the hardest thing in the world!” He explained: “Many people think that giving up means nothing is left. Only those who have never tried will say giving up is easy. Giving up means there’s nothing left, but if I don’t give up, I still have a chance to succeed!”
This article is partially organized and excerpted from Chen Yalin’s book Those Glimmers of Life.
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