It’s a marvellous work of cinematic art, but it’s also a horrifically fascinating and deeply poignant view of a non-independent judicial system at work: its subject, in effect, is procedural injustice. “When Night Falls” is directed by Ying Liang—whose work I’ve written about here often; he’s one of the world’s best young filmmakers. The Chinese government took stern steps against the movie and its director at the time of its première at the Jeongju Film Festival, attempting to purchase the film subjecting the filmmaker’s family to interrogations, visiting the filmmaker (who is now essentially in exile in Hong Kong) in the hope of persuading him to change it, and threatening him with arrest should he return home.
It’s a fictionalized account of a true story, concerning a young man, Yang Jia, who was convicted, in 2008, of stabbing and slashing six police officers to death. Later in the year, he was executed. The background to these incidents (or accusations) concerns Yang’s arrest for riding an unlicensed bicycle; he charged that he was beaten in police custody and his attempts to bring charges or seek other redress were rejected. After Yang’s arrest, he became (according to the filmmaker Edmund Yeo) “a hero among many Chinese.”