Wake Up 2

Wake Up 2
Original title麻醉風暴2
GenreMedical
Drama
Written byWang Hui-chu
Yang Wan-ju
Lin Ken-wei
Aozaru Shiao
Huang Yu-chia
Chen Cheng-yu
Jag Huang
Directed byAozaru Shiao
Hung Po-hao
Lin Chih-ju
StarringJag Huang
Hsu Wei-ning
Lego Lee
Summer Meng
Wu Kang-jen
Theme music composerNo Party For Cao Dong
Opening themeMud
Ending themeNever Give Up
ComposersRockid Lee
Yu Chia-luen
Country of originTaiwan
Original languagesMandarin
English
Arabic
Taiwanese
Hakka
No. of episodes13
Production
ProducersHank Tseng
Phil Tang
Production locationsTaipei, Taiwan, Kaoshiung, Tainan, Taoyuan, Jordan
Running time50 minutes
Production companiesGreener Grass Production
PTS
Original release
ReleaseSeptember 9 (2017-09-09) –
October 28, 2017 (2017-10-28)
Related
Infobox instructions (only shown in preview)

Wake Up 2 (Chinese: 麻醉風暴2) is a 2017 Taiwanese television series and sequel to Wake Up, with the story set 5 years after the prequel, starring the original cast with the addition of Lego Lee and Summer Meng. This is also Lee and Meng's third collaboration after 2013 film 27°C - Loaf Rocks and 2014 television series Aim High. Wake Up 2 is the first Taiwanese television series to film in a Middle Eastern country, where filming took place in refugee camps in the Northern Borders Region of the Jordan River and Syria, to depict the selflessness and heroism of humanitarian rescue.[1][2][3][4] The main storylines involve the humanitarian rescue in Middle East, a subway bombing incident in Kaohsiung (filmed in Taoyuan HSR station), the continuation of Human Meatball Controversy from series one, and the restructuring of National Public Healthcare in 2016.[5] Wake Up 2's tag-line is "Never Give Up", which serves not only as a line of encouragement, but also as a question on when they should or have to give up (e.g. abandon operation, stop resuscitation to a deceased patient, etc.)[6]

With a total of thirteen episodes, Wake Up 2's production budget was five times more than the first installment in the series, up to NT$60 million, with majority of the budget spent on hiring cameos, medical consultants and making false cadavers from animal innards. Filming in Taiwan began on August 19, 2016, in Kaohsiung and ended on January 17, 2017, in Taipei. The crew then head for Jordan to film the war scenes as Jordan is relatively safer than Syria. Filming was completed on February 14, 2017, and entered post production for another 6 to 7 months before release.

At the end of each episode, Before Waking Up, Outside the Storm is a mini aftershow which shows behind-the-scenes interviews. Similar to Wake Up, each week in the premiere is shown in two episodes, with the final episode being a single finale plus a one-hour feature length behind-the-scenes episode, where the entire makings of most props and logics behind the storylines are revealed. The show did not air on week of September 30 for the live broadcast of the 52nd Golden Bell Awards.

Following the release of Wake Up 2, the creative team decided not to move forward with a third season onward, as they thought 2 had a perfect ending that wrapped up the story. Despite there were talks/ideas of a potential continuation during writing stages, producers have noted this would be up to the decision for the studios to make the decision.

  1. ^ "《麻醉風暴2》遠赴中東取景 李國毅扮醫生還要苦練rap". 風向新聞 | Kairos.news (in Chinese (Taiwan)). 2016-08-16. Retrieved 2017-07-06.
  2. ^ "《麻醉風暴2》9月登場 - 中時電子報". chinatimes.com. Retrieved 2017-09-17.
  3. ^ "更國際、更貼近現實生活,《麻醉風暴2》9/9強勢回歸|娛樂新聞-VOGUE時尚網". vogue.com.tw. 7 July 2017. Retrieved 2017-09-17.
  4. ^ "《麻醉2》他被炸飛醒來死一半 海報《聶隱娘》設計師操刀 - 自由娛樂". ent.ltn.com.tw. 7 July 2017. Retrieved 2017-09-17.
  5. ^ 星鮮話 (2017-09-13), 李國毅 吳慷仁《麻醉風暴2》斥資六千萬,還KUSO狂新聞?!星鮮話20170913, retrieved 2017-09-26
  6. ^ PTS 台灣公共電視 (2017-08-19), 麻醉風暴S2 1VS2橋接篇, retrieved 2017-09-27