Fake Medical Ad Video Finally Uploaded to YouTube

Several weeks ago, a post I made on China cracking down on fake doctors garnered a small amount of attention from the China-blogosphere. That was mostly fueled by the well-trafficked website Shanghaiist linking up to my blog.

At the time of my posting, I promised to ask my good friend James whether he could find the DVD with these videos with my friends pretending to be doctors on it. He looked for a few days, but could not find anything. He said he'd keep looking, but I gave up hope.

But then the other day, James called me and told that he'd found the video! I got the DVD from him, figured out how to transfer the video from DVD to my computer, edited the video from thirty miuntes to less than ten minutes, and then converted that ten minute video to YouTube (complicated... the original was an MPEG-1 Mudex).

The video he gave me is of my English friend, Paul, acting like a US war general. The medicine is either for prostrate or impotence medicine. Maybe both. I'm not quite sure exactly what the product is.

Here is the YouTube video:



I've watched the video and took notes on some of the highlights:

0:00 - Comes right in with "Saving Private Ryan" and "Blackhawk Down" clips.

0:09 - The loss of the soldier's leg here adds an interesting effect.

0:58 - Haven't seen this movie. Some nice shots of Washington DC.

1:49 - Nice phallic imagery.

2:31 - They're saying something about Houston here.

2:53 - Soldier gettin' intimate with his lady.

3:07 - War planning.

3:14 - 9/11!!!

3:27 - The Honorable POTUS John Voight.

3:48 - Back to reality.

4:23 - My friend Paul on TV. I love that English accent on a US general!

5:01 - "I have no idea what I'm talking about."

5:27 - Close up of US Army patch.

5:37 - Pretty sweet graphic here.

This whole section - "So, what happens then..."

And then the rest of the clip is just talking by the Chinese experts on the show.

The original video is thirty minutes long. I had to cut this one down to less than ten minutes because of YouTube's uploading policies. Ten minutes of this is enough though.

I wasn't really listening to the Chinese on it. Most of it is over my head. I'd have to watch it really really slowly to try to pick it up. For anyone watching this video who can speak Chinese, more detail on the Chinese would be most appreciated.

In another matter, I'm headed down to Guangzhou tonight with Jackie for our visa interview on Wednesday. Heady times!

I'm bringing my camera and am hoping to get a sense of southern China and my first visit to the Pearl River Delta. I'm going to try to post on here as much as possible down there.