Among the many types of domestic dramas, medical dramas have always been the most popular.
On the one hand, the audience is full of expectations for this theme, eager to peek into the true face of the medical industry, feel the tension of racing against death, and be moved by the greatness of saving lives. But on the other hand, they are full of distrust of this theme, because for a long time, many traditional medical dramas have been stuck in routines, either portraying doctors as "great and glorious" and putting them on the altar, or relying on piling up the suffering of patients to earn tears, but ignoring the complex internal texture of the medical industry and the deep excavation of human nature. There are very few high-quality medical dramas that can really "quench the thirst" of the audience.
Poster of "The Kind Club"
The recently aired "The Kindness Club" on Mango TV has successfully broken through the circle of medical dramas. With its unique light comedy style, vivid group narrative and in-depth discussion of social issues, it has become a bold and successful attempt in the field of medical dramas. For this reason, The Paper interviewed the screenwriters of the drama, Weng Haixin and Wang Huan, to explore the creation story and thinking behind the drama.
As of now, "The Kind Heart Club" has received a score of 7.1 on Douban, with over 26,000 viewers rating it.
The creative opportunity comes from in-depth observation
Before creating "The Kindness Club", Weng Haixin and Wang Huan had experience in creating successful medical dramas such as "The Great Pediatrician". However, when they started creating "The Kindness Club", they went deep into many tertiary hospitals in Shanghai and started an eight-month field trip. During this time, they recorded more than 300 real medical scenes in all aspects, from the doctors' focused and rigorous operating standards in the operating room, to the emergency plans in the emergency room, and to the exhausting and real life details in the doctor's duty room.
"During that time, we saw the unknown side of doctors. They are heroes who save lives on the operating table, but when they step off the operating table, they are also ordinary people with flesh and blood like us, surrounded by professional pressure, emotional difficulties and life challenges." Weng Haixin said with emotion. It is these personal observations and experiences that made them determined to break the stereotype of doctors as "divine" in traditional medical dramas and restore the truest appearance of doctors.
Restore the truest appearance of doctors
The medical industry has never existed in isolation, it is closely connected with all aspects of society. Weng Haixin and Wang Huan keenly grasped this point, and they hope to use the unique perspective of medical dramas to explore the hidden social problems behind them. For example, the delicate balance between doctor-patient relationship, the uneven distribution of medical resources, the fierce competition for professional titles, and the difficult balance between family and career are all the contents they want to show in the drama and trigger the audience's thinking.
"We don't want to just do superficial work, but hope that the audience can have a deeper understanding of these social phenomena while watching the drama, and then have more understanding and support for the medical industry and doctors." Wang Huan added.
Group portrait narrative, outlining the various types of doctors
Entering the world of "The Kindness Club", the setting of the marathon club is the key point of the theme. Marathon training provides doctors with a platform to release pressure and support each other. The intention of connecting the group of doctors through the "marathon club" is not only to enhance the coherence of the plot and the interaction between the characters, but also to metaphorically represent the dual pressures faced by doctors in their careers and lives - endurance and perseverance in their careers; pressure and challenges in their lives.
The setting of the marathon club is the key point of "The Kindness Club"
It can be said that the Marathon Club, as a link, brings together doctors from different departments and with different personalities. For example, the boldness and delicacy of neurosurgeon Liu Ziyi, the humor and warmth of cardiac surgeon Qin Wenbin, the anxiety and hard work of general surgeon Wang Gaosheng, the persistence and kindness of emergency doctor Gu Shiyi, and the responsibility and perseverance of ICU doctor Jiang Yu are all vividly presented through the activities of the club. The protagonists, with the professional characteristics of their respective departments and the ups and downs of their respective lives, perform hilarious and funny daily routines.
"In order to make each character stand out and stand firm, we set up 'professional files' and 'life files' for them, and also proposed the 'medical personality spectrum theory'." Wang Huan introduced, "We want to emphasize the game between doctors' professional beliefs and human weaknesses, which is the real human nature."
Take the stubborn heroine Liu Ziyi as an example. Her obsession of "99 points equals 0 points" seems to be harsh and inhumane, but it actually has a profound source. This is not only a professional projection of the almost demanding requirements for precision as a neurosurgeon, but also an external manifestation of the psychological trauma of her mother's death. The departure of her mother made her have a deeper respect for life and made her pursue the ultimate perfection in her work, because in her heart, any mistake may mean irreversible consequences. When the audience sees her superb medical skills on the operating table, they can also empathize with her deep pain.
The two screenwriters admitted that "The Kindness Club" adopts a multi-line narrative of "five-person doctor group portrait + marathon club", which requires extremely high writing skills from the screenwriters. How to balance the development of the group portrait and the climax of a single episode within 40 episodes is the difficulty of structural design. Traditional medical dramas are mostly promoted with single-case unit dramas, while group portrait dramas require more complex plot weaving. Therefore, the screenwriter team adopted the "theme anchor" connection method, with each episode revolving around a core theme (such as "trust" and "trade-offs"), and jointly explained through the branches of different characters. For example, some episodes in the play are themed "doctor-patient trust crisis", which simultaneously shows Liu Ziyi being framed by patients, Jiang Yu's failure to communicate with his family, and Wang Gaosheng encountering the triple dilemma of medical disputes, forming an emotional resonance between doctors and between doctors and the audience.
Stills from The Kind Club
Light comedy does not conflict with professionalism
Traditional medical dramas often rely on tense and exciting surgical scenes and life-and-death decisions to drive the plot, and many doctor protagonists are mostly "personalities" with perfect morals and medical skills. However, Weng Haixin and Wang Huan believe that this way of presentation is too simplistic and one-sided. They boldly incorporate light comedy elements into the drama, trying to use a relaxed and humorous atmosphere to neutralize the usual heaviness of medical dramas, allowing the audience to feel the story of the medical industry in laughter. At the same time, abandoning the "perfect personality", they focus on showing the fragility, struggle, and flaws of doctors behind the professional halo, making the characters more three-dimensional, vivid, and full of realism.
The two screenwriters recalled the scene when they were collecting folk songs: "We found that doctors often use humor and self-deprecation to relieve stress after working under high pressure. They eat instant noodles in the duty room and discuss parenting magazines. These details of life have given us great inspiration." In addition, one of the most hotly discussed black humor plots in "The Kind Heart Club" is that Liu Ziyi's fiancé was rushed to the hospital because his lower body was stuck in a glass bottle due to his cheating. Faced with this absurd scene, Liu Ziyi calmly gave the doctor's advice of "cut it off" and then turned and left. The two screenwriters said that this plot seems outrageous, but in fact it satirizes the marriage crisis and moral dilemma in reality through exaggeration.
Many traditional medical dramas are often shrouded in a tense and depressing atmosphere. The life-and-death speed of the surgical scenes and the heaviness brought by the complex cases can catch the audience's attention, but it is also easy to make the current audience feel tired. "The Kind Heart Club" hopes to break this dullness. The doctors in the play go to the convenience store to buy coffee in between their busy work, complain about their work and leaders, and enjoy a moment of tranquility, just like ordinary "cows and horses". The seemingly insignificant little play is full of fireworks. The bickering interaction between Liu Ziyi and Qin Wenbin, the daily jokes in the marathon club, these plots allow the audience to see the life side of the doctors. They are no longer cold "medical machines", and the audience is therefore more likely to resonate with the characters emotionally.
Let the audience see the real life side of doctors
But while incorporating light comedy elements, the crew always puts the seriousness and professionalism of medical dramas first. In order to ensure that every medical scene, case details, and professional terminology are accurate, the show has specially formed a professional medical consultant team, which is composed of senior doctors and nurses from tertiary hospitals. These professionals participated in the script creation throughout the process, strictly checking every detail, from surgical procedures to drug use, from diagnostic methods to case analysis, all presented under their guidance. According to the two screenwriters, all the cases in the play are adapted from real events.
Seeing the big picture from the small, triggering social thinking
In the eyes of the two screenwriters, "The Kindness Club" is not limited to the superficial presentation of the medical industry, but digs deeper and reflects a series of broad and profound social issues through medical scenes.
In the "extracorporeal heart" case, the audience saw the wonders of the disease and the advancement of medical technology. At the same time, the family problems faced by the young patients were also shown without reservation. The unequal distribution of medical resources was also revealed through the plight of several families of child patients. The struggle of patients on the verge of life and death and the choice of family members between emotion and rationality all show the difficult choices faced by families and society under limited medical resources. In the case of "husband killing wife", both patients were struggling on the verge of life and death. Obviously one was the perpetrator and the other was the victim, but in front of the doctor, there were no good or bad people, only patients. However, this professional attitude may bring violence to the doctor from family members and accusations from public opinion.
Dr. Wang Gaosheng's "millennium attending physician" dilemma focuses on the pressure of professional title promotion that is prevalent in the medical industry. As an experienced attending physician with rich clinical experience and superb medical skills, he has been trapped in the bottleneck of promotion for a long time due to scientific research pressure and limited foreign language proficiency. This dilemma not only hinders his career development, but also brings great pressure to his life. From Wang Gaosheng, the audience saw the struggle and helplessness of countless doctors on the road to professional title promotion. The screenwriters hope to use this to trigger the audience's thinking on the professional title promotion mechanism in the medical industry, promote the establishment of a more fair and reasonable promotion system, and allow doctors who are capable and contributing in clinical practice to get due recognition and development opportunities.
The role of "Wang Gaosheng" allows the audience to see the struggles and helplessness of countless doctors on the road to professional title promotion
The doctor-patient relationship has always been an important topic that cannot be avoided in medical dramas, and "The Kindness Club" is no exception. The "Lonely Old Man Zhang Chengpeng Case" in the play is a classic. It integrates many real medical disputes and shows the complexity of preoperative communication, the importance of surgical risk assessment and other professional processes. The reversal of the "farmer and the snake" in the plot puts the deep-seated problem of the social trust crisis in front of the audience. This design allows the audience to understand medical knowledge while also beginning to reflect on the relationship between doctors and patients. The screenwriters hope that through these plots, they can arouse the society's attention to the doctor-patient relationship, call on both sides to understand and communicate more, reduce misunderstandings and conflicts, and jointly create a harmonious medical environment.
Doctor-patient relationship is a "two-way healing"
The two screenwriters said that "two-way healing" is the narrative concept throughout "The Kindness Club". In the play, doctors use their professional medical skills to treat patients, helping them overcome the disease and regain their lives; and the stories and experiences of the patients are like little lights, illuminating the hearts of the doctors, giving them spiritual touches and a sense of professional value.
Dr. Liu Ziyi is a typical example. The death of her mother left her with an indelible trauma, and for a long time, this pain followed her like a shadow. However, in the process of treating patients again and again, she gradually found inner peace and relief. Every time she successfully saved a patient's life, it was like healing herself who had been hurt, giving her a new understanding and perception of life.
Qin Wenbin is the same. He creates miracles of life one after another on the operating table, showing superb medical skills and professionalism. But in his family life, his marriage broke down and he fell into loneliness and confusion. But the trust and dependence of his patients helped him regain his self-worth and understand that his efforts were not only for work, but also for those lives in need.
"Two-way healing" runs through "The Kind Heart Club"
"We hope that through this two-way healing narrative loop, the audience can truly feel the deep emotional connection between doctors and patients." Weng Haixin said, "Doctors and patients are not isolated individuals. In the process of fighting the disease together, they influence and heal each other. This emotional bond is very precious." This narrative concept not only enhances the appeal of the plot, making the audience worry about the fate of the characters in the play, but also conveys a positive value. The two screenwriters said frankly, "We hope that this drama can allow the audience to see the professionalism of the medical industry, feel the difficulties of the doctor group, resonate with them emotionally, and convey the warmth and strength of the medical industry."
