It never occurs to me a film made in China can include so many factors in a film after censorship: rape, murder, direct gay culture reference, blood, brief nudity (female) and even lethal injection - the first time ever I saw such a scene in a film.
Apart from all of that the film's success largely lies in the best selling book it has adapted from: Macula. Not like majority of the films which for me the director (Baoping CAO) has moved significantly from the original story, upgraded to a higher level by challenging the existing death penalty system in China.
The watershed differentiate the book and the film mainly draw from the ending part - =============== Spoiler alert ===================== when the book concluded with 3 Young people being found guilty for what they did back to 7 years ago and conducted lethal injection, the film has lifted the story by making such death sentence as a miscarriage - it's a brave move in my view as the film is substantially challenging the existing death penalty system in China, which is yet to be a taboo but a sensitive topic for sure. Considered the backdrop that quite a few miscarriage death sentenced cases were revealed in recent years, the film has further boosted the discussion on being extremely discreet on death sentence, and even whether such penalty should be necessary.
I am deeply impressed by the bold move of Director Cao, who is famous of pushing the limits of the censorship bureaus in China. And he did it again.
I won't give it a 8 just because its braveness but also unexpected outstanding performance from the main actors (who has shared Shanghai film festival's best actor awards), and half credits have to give to the author Xu Yigua, a Xiamen resident, where the story was set.
To the director, I will say Bravo CAO (you will know what it means if you know Chinese) ! !
Apart from all of that the film's success largely lies in the best selling book it has adapted from: Macula. Not like majority of the films which for me the director (Baoping CAO) has moved significantly from the original story, upgraded to a higher level by challenging the existing death penalty system in China.
The watershed differentiate the book and the film mainly draw from the ending part - =============== Spoiler alert ===================== when the book concluded with 3 Young people being found guilty for what they did back to 7 years ago and conducted lethal injection, the film has lifted the story by making such death sentence as a miscarriage - it's a brave move in my view as the film is substantially challenging the existing death penalty system in China, which is yet to be a taboo but a sensitive topic for sure. Considered the backdrop that quite a few miscarriage death sentenced cases were revealed in recent years, the film has further boosted the discussion on being extremely discreet on death sentence, and even whether such penalty should be necessary.
I am deeply impressed by the bold move of Director Cao, who is famous of pushing the limits of the censorship bureaus in China. And he did it again.
I won't give it a 8 just because its braveness but also unexpected outstanding performance from the main actors (who has shared Shanghai film festival's best actor awards), and half credits have to give to the author Xu Yigua, a Xiamen resident, where the story was set.
To the director, I will say Bravo CAO (you will know what it means if you know Chinese) ! !