A few days ago, I briefly talked about my thoughts on "Hong Kong celebrity Cai Tianfeng's crushed corpse case" in "Ling Chen Said". The details disclosed so far in the case make it difficult for many people to believe that this is a case that happened in 2023.
In fact, 10 years ago, there was also a horrific shredding case in Hong Kong. The murderer Zhou Kailiang teamed up with netizens to kill his parents, dismembered the body, and put his head in the refrigerator.
In order to gain time to dispose of the body, Zhou Kailiang lied to his family that his parents had traveled to the mainland, and then made a high-profile drama to find his parents who disappeared through the media.
Therefore, this case is also called the "2013 Hong Kong Murder of Relatives Against Son".
Just recently, a movie based on this case entered everyone's field of vision - "The Corridor of Justice".
The film is directed by newcomer director He Juetian, and produced by Weng Ziguang, the director of "Stepping on Blood to Find Mei", and is rated as "level three" in Hong Kong, and the box office has climbed all the way after its release.
On the whole, this "Corridor of Justice" has the temperament of "Stepping on Blood to Find Mei".
The movie does not play tricks, nor does it tell the case detection process in chronological order, but directly targets the murderer Zhang Xianzong.
He grew up under the strict discipline of his parents, and then went to study abroad, and because of his short stature, he was often bullied by black classmates.
After returning to Hong Kong, Cheung Hsien Tsung ran into a wall in his job search and lost a lot of money in stock trading, causing his parents to decide to transfer the house that should have been given to him to his brother. Because of this incident, the relationship between the whole family was very tense for a while.
It can be said that the original family has endowed Zhang Xianzong with an inferiority and conceited character, and he always has talents, looking forward to a stage to show himself.
In March 2013, Zhang Hsien-zong publicly searched through the media, saying that his parents had not been heard from after they went to the mainland.
But in fact, his parents have been killed and dismembered by Zhang Xianzong and his casual friend Tang Wenqi, and some of the corpses have been thrown into the sea, and their heads are stored in the refrigerator where the two rented a house.
The key to solving the case was that Zhang Xianzong suddenly blew himself up while chatting with netizens.
After that, the highlight of the film was placed on the litigation of the murder.
The prosecution instituted a prosecution, the defendants Zhang Xianzong and Tang Wenqi each hired lawyers to defend themselves, and the judge presided over the selection of nine jury members with different genders, ages, occupations, incomes, and experiences.
It is also with the jury's perspective that the film will reveal the details related to the case one by one.
Zhang Xianzong admitted in his confession that he and Tang Wenqi had planned to bring their parents into their rental house and use knives to commit murder respectively, and Tang Wenqi accidentally injured Zhang Xianzong in the entanglement.
After that, Zhang Xianzong left the scene of the murder and ran to the hospital to treat his injuries, and the body was dismembered and cooked by Tang Wenqi. A few days later, Zhang Xianzong returned to the place of the crime, packed up the corpse with Tang Wenqi, and went to the beach to throw the body.
Surveillance videos and online chat records prove that the two had discussed murder methods and bought a large number of knives together, and Zhang Xianzong stayed in the rental house for less than 20 minutes on the day of the crime, and then went to the hospital.
According to the confession provided by the police, Tang Wenqi admitted to collaborating with Zhang Xianzong to kill and divide the body after his arrest.
However, in court, Tang Wenqi staged a "Rashomon" and flatly denied the crime of murder.
Tang Wenqi said that because his IQ was lower than normal, he was often blinded, but Zhang Xianzong was particularly friendly to him, and the two became friends and rented a house together.
On the day of the crime, Tang Wenqi returned to the rental house and bumped into Zhang Xianzong, who was disposing of the body, and under the threat of the other party, Tang Wenqi could only agree to help dispose of the broken body.
He previously confessed to murder because the police used illegal sleep deprivation to extract a confession, and he was forced to sign a confession.
In short, Tang Wenqi has always emphasized that his IQ and memory are limited, and everything he does is threatened by Zhang Xianzong.
However, the handwritten notes and chat record evidence provided by the prosecution show that Tang Wenqi is not unrelated to the murder as he stated.
The contradictory statements of the two defendants in court subtly influenced the response strategies of the prosecution and the two defendants' lawyers, and also influenced the positions of the jury members.
The biggest attraction of "The Corridor of Justice" is the jury discussion room outside the courtroom.
As the people involved in the case testified in court one after another, the jury members also had different and even-for-tat positions on various details due to their personal experience and educational background.
When it comes to Zhang Xianzong's native family, some people think that he is cruel in murder, after all, "the parents of all the world";
Others counter that past criminal cases have proved that parents are not completely good.
When it comes to Zhang Xianzong's personal development, some people directly take people by their appearance and identify him as a loser who has no merit;
But others are quick to argue that success and failure cannot be judged by earning more or less alone.
Speaking of the second defendant Tang Wenqi, who has a low IQ, some people think that with his IQ, there is a high probability that he will not commit another crime after that, and he is inclined to acquit him;
Some people have something to say, thinking that Tang Wenqi may also deliberately play the fool to win sympathy and escape responsibility.
These differences and arguments of the jury actually confirm a drawback inherent in this system -
Juries are more susceptible to emotional factors than evidence, and even project personal experiences onto those involved in the case.
But this argument did not last long, and every member of the jury began to realize that what happened in the discussion room was not an ordinary debate, and that the final conclusion reached was enough to determine a person's future.
The fundamental principle of the jury's decision is that "there is no suspicion of guilt", and when there is a situation that is neither sufficient to prove the guilt of the defendant nor the innocence of the defendant, the innocent person should be presumed innocent.
After many days of discussion, the jury finally came to a conclusion -
The first defendant, Zhang Xianzong, was convicted of killing his parents and sentenced to life imprisonment; The second defendant, Tang Wenqi, was acquitted of murder and sentenced to one year in prison for "preventing the legal burial of a body," but was released on the spot because he had been in custody for more than two years.
It is worth mentioning that although the verdict came to an end, the director still gave some hints of reversal.
For example, before appearing in court, Tang Wenqi's sister once instructed to "remember some words", and it is likely that this was the instruction of the defense lawyer, who intended to win the sympathy of the jury.
For example, Tang Wenqi, whose IQ is lower than ordinary people, actually passed the accounting level 2 exam and did not seem to be as "stupid" as he appeared in court, but these evidences were not included in the evidence by the police at that time.
The last shot of the film is even more meaningful, Tang Wenqi, who has always declared that he is afraid of spiders, allows a spider to lie on his body, surrounded by terrifying spider silk...
Whether Tang Wenqi participated in the murder or not, the film did not give a clear conclusion, but let the audience and the jury walk into the "cloister" of finding justice.
The director's ultimate goal is to let each audience extend their thinking about human nature and system from this trial.
In addition, although the film is mainly based on court dramas, it uses dramatic lens language and a narrative method that breaks the fourth wall, turning a slightly boring court statement into an "immersive onlooker scene reproduction", giving the audience a refreshing feeling.
The film also shows the strong desire for expression that Hong Kong new directors are accustomed to, telling real cases while also wanting to integrate thinking about individuals and systems, human feelings and jurisprudence.
It's a pity that the more the director wants to cover everything in the film, the more he falls into the superficial circle, resulting in some side characters' stories and themes can only be clicked to the end, leaving only some unconscious "golden sentences".
In addition, the film completely "abandoned" the mainland market, added large-scale plots such as violence and blood, and the gimmick of "tertiary films" that require ID cards to watch really attracted many people.
But large-scale is not just for the sake of selling.
As I mentioned earlier, "The Corridor of Justice" has the temperament of "Stepping on Blood to Find Mei", because it is the same as "Stepping on Blood to Find Mei", talking about cases, the purpose is to observe society, talking about individuals, and ultimately pointing to groups.
The film spends a lot of space portraying the character of the murderer Zhang Xianzong and his family.
He comes from a middle-class family, has received higher education, and is born with a sense of superiority, but this sense of superiority is no match for the inferiority caused by his short height, causing Zhang Xianzong to always live in the evaluation of others.
He once participated in the audition of a third-grade film, boasted in front of the director, and even unceremoniously evaluated the other party's work.
The director was quite satisfied with him and called an actress to play with him on the spot.
In the face of the actress who untied his generous clothes, he instantly faded his sophisticated posture just now, and nervously caused an undeserved "leakage accident"...
This episode is revealing Zhang Xianzong's lofty and self-serving, he once fantasized about his impassioned self-defense in court, but eventually gave up - his conceited stage can only remain in self-conjecture.
Since the interview witnessed a series of changes such as others "deciding" and the transfer of real estate by his parents to his brother, the only sense of superiority that Zhang Xianzong had was also gone.
In real life, the person with the same personality and similar encounters is by no means Zhang Xianzong.
The court in the film is not entirely for the truth, but involves the dialectical relationship between procedure and justice, the game of reason and empathy, the checks and balances of rights and systems...
In general, "The Corridor of Justice" is a rare and wonderful Hong Kong film in recent years, focusing on the present through real cases, although the case is "strange", it is the most real present.