INTERVIEW 'What I like most of Korean drama is depth of emotion'

Daniel Dae Kim, founder and director of a film and television production company 3AD, speaks during an interveiw with The Korea Times at COEX in Seoul, Wednesady. / Courtesy of KOCCA

By Park Jin-hai

Hawaii Five-0 star Daniel Dae Kim, who is now a founder and director of a film and television production company 3AD, came to Seoul for 2017 BroadCast WorldWide (BCWW).

The 49-year-old Korean American, after a successful 13 years on American TV, is producing the television series “The Good Doctor,” a reboot of the same name Korean 2013 KBS hit drama.

“It will be the first Korean format ever on broadcast network prime time television,” he said proudly during the interview with The Korea Times at COEX, in Seoul, Wednesday. “Good doctor was picked up by ABC in the U.S. and we are going to start broadcasting on Sept. 25. We’re shooting our third episode right now in Vancouver.”

However, making the story about a pediatric surgeon with autism and savant syndrome into a TV series was not easy at all; it took three years to get the go-ahead since the show was first developed by his company in 2014.

“We wrote a pilot and didn’t get it developed as a series. Generally at that time, you just put it away. But, I felt strongly about the project and I bought the rights to it personally and wanted it redeveloped at a different network,” said Kim.

With David Shore, the creator of popular Fox medical series “House,” they wrote a script and developed it for the second time and this time they were successful.

He says his company focuses on telling stories of people from diverse backgrounds _ race, gender and religious diversity _ and the lead character’s autism condition falls into that same category.

“It is not about super doctors performing incredible surgeries. There is something interesting about the lead character _ someone we haven’t seen on TV before. We are not just seeing everyone being an expert all the time but someone with a challenge and not a challenge that he creates for himself. This is a challenge he is born with,” he said. “Many people on American television, they have drinking or womanizing or gambling problems. So they become anti-heroes, but this character is only trying to do his best and he has challenges that are not in his control. And you can root for him with your heart.”

Kim says he likes Korean drama’s depth of emotion the most, with characters feeling everything fully, but not every Korean drama can be translated into American TV shows. “When they are sad, they are 100 percent sad. When they are in love, they are 100 percent in love. What’s why you want to watch their stories, because they feel so deeply about their own situations,” he said. “Korean formats are usually 20 to 24 episodes and it’s over, it is very difficult to find one that can go five or six or seven seasons in America. But the medical genre is one that can go for a very long time, which is why we targeted Good Doctor. With Shore, our showrunner, we were all thinking about where to take characters in the future. That gives more freedom to American TV shows.”

Regarding his abrupt exit from “Hawaii Five-0” series, with co-star Grace Park, because of unfair payment as an Asian actor, Kim said for his entire career, he fought to portray Koreans and Asians in the right way and to make sure they are treated fairly and equally.

“I didn’t stop then and I won’t stop now. I will always fight for those things, because it affects not just my life, but my family’s lives and my children’s lives and their careers,” he said.

“People are not used to Asian Americans speaking up for their rights. In American history, Asians have always been the quiet ones. It did create controversy, because there aren’t a lot of people speaking up like this. But in general, in America there are a lot of racial controversies and America had a history of racial issues and I think it is a good thing, because all of these things have to come out. You have to see all the illness before you could heal it.”