《监狱来的妈妈》——电影、真实和判决书

Wang Han posted an apology on Weibo.

Who is Wang Han —

I'd guess you know.

Happy Camp, Day Day Up, I Am a Singer —

several of the most iconic variety shows of Hunan TV's past two-plus decades

are tied to that name.

In China he is at the level of a "host of the nation."

In the same tier as He Jiong and Sa Beining — the "if he has a problem,

half the entertainment industry trembles with him" tier.

But on this night,

he was bowing his head to apologize in public.

The reason for his apology

is a movie.

The movie is called "Mother From Prison."

The director is Qin Xiaoyu.

It was originally set to release on May 30, 2026.

But before this apology of Wang Han's went out,

the movie had already been pulled.

This matter

is, in fact, one of the most complex,

and most worth-reading-deeply, cultural events in China in recent years.

It involves at least four things:

a real criminal case.

a movie "based on a true story."

a person who took part in filmmaking while deprived of political rights.

and a group of celebrities who, carelessly, became its endorsers.

Let's go layer by layer.

Layer one: the real case.

The night of April 16, 2009,

Shaanxi.

Zhao Xiaohong and her husband Zhang Bo

got into an argument over an extremely small household matter.

In the verdict's own words,

that matter was "propping up the bed."

A matter of how to set the bed up properly.

Halfway through the argument,

Zhao Xiaohong got a fruit knife from the living room,

returned to the bedroom,

and stabbed her husband once in the chest.

That stab pierced his aorta.

Zhang Bo died on the spot.

The Shaanxi High People's Court, in its 2009 verdict, found:

Zhao Xiaohong was guilty of intentional injury (causing death).

Sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment.

Deprivation of political rights for 5 years.

15 years is the maximum sentence this crime can carry.

We call it "the maximum sentence."

Please remember the key point of the verdict:

in the court's findings of fact,

there is no "domestic violence."

No "long-term abuse."

No "resistance."

No "self-defense."

The fact the court found

was an act of injury born of losing control over a trivial domestic matter —

an intentional one,

an armed one —

that caused the death of a specific,

real person who actually existed.

This is the version the judicial system stamped on this event.

Around 2024,

Zhao Xiaohong finished her sentence and was released.

The story, at this point,

should have ended.

She served 15 years.

In the legal sense,

she had already paid the price for this.

She could slowly rejoin society.

But while she was serving her sentence,

someone began to hatch a different idea.

Layer two: the movie.

Qin Xiaoyu,

an independent film director.

Previously focused on documentaries.

In 2019,

he launched this film project called "Mother From Prison."

He planned to have Zhao Xiaohong

play herself.

Note the timing:

2019.

Zhao Xiaohong was still in prison then.

The director himself admitted in a public interview:

when the project launched, she was behind bars.

Filming wrapped in 2021.

That is to say,

a year or two before Zhao Xiaohong's release,

the crew was already in the prison shooting this movie of her.

This in itself constitutes a serious legal problem.

"Deprivation of political rights," as set out in China's criminal law,

includes among its meanings:

a person deprived of political rights,

during the deprivation period,

may not exercise the freedoms of speech, publication, assembly, association, procession, or demonstration.

In judicial practice,

this clause is interpreted fairly broadly:

film performance, commercial promotion, public speech —

it is generally held

that all fall under this clause's restriction.

Alongside her 15-year sentence,

Zhao Xiaohong also had 5 years of deprivation of political rights attached.

That is to say,

even though she was released around 2024,

until 2029

she should, in theory, not publicly take part in film creation and promotion.

But in this movie,

she not only took part,

she is the lead,

appearing under her own real name,

even headed for Cannes and San Sebastián.

In fact,

the film's lead actress did, at the 73rd San Sebastián International Film Festival,

win Best Supporting Actress.

That is to say,

a person still legally restricted from public activity as a sentenced offender,

through a film project,

won an international award.

But this still isn't all.

The more central problem

isn't procedure,

it's content.

Layer three: the Zhao Xiaohong in the movie.

The movie's promotion says

this is the story of a wife abused for years.

She couldn't endure years of violence,

and that night she resisted,

and accidentally killed her husband.

She spent ten years in prison.

After release,

she wants to return to her son and mother-in-law.

It sounds

like a story you can't help but cry over.

In fact,

when Yao Chen first recommended this movie on Weibo,

she used exactly this tone:

a mother, a victim, a woman crushed by fate who still has to get back up.

There's only one problem:

in the court's verdict,

this story cannot be found.

In the verdict there is no domestic violence.

No long-term abuse.

No resistance.

There is only:

a small matter, a knife, a death.

That is to say,

the movie did one thing:

it erased the facts the court had already stamped,

then invented, out of nothing, a reason for the lead that means she should not bear the guilt.

Chinese netizens call this "whitewashing."

It is a heavy word.

"Whitewashing,"

originally referred to money laundering,

to laundering dirty money.

Extended to a person,

it means:

taking a guilty person,

repackaging them through narrative,

making the public believe she is actually innocent,

even worthy of sympathy.

In this specific movie,

it means using "domestic violence" — the label with the most public empathy —

to cover a killing that had nothing to do with domestic violence.

In recent years, Chinese society's

attention to domestic violence has been real

and deep.

There are women truly struggling within domestic violence.

There are real cases of women jailed for resisting,

then reexamined afterward by public opinion and the courts.

Precisely because that attention is real

and precious,

those who use "domestic violence" as a false cloak

make the public especially angry.

It's not just being deceived by a fictional story,

it's seeing a concept meant to protect real victims

being used to whitewash a real perpetrator.

Layer four: celebrities and "endorsement."

Back to Wang Han.

Wang Han's role this time

was "producer."

The title of "producer,"

in China's film industry, is a fairly vague label.

It can mean an investor putting in real money,

or it can be just a named figure,

a "representative person."

In his apology, Wang Han said:

he did not take part in the investment.

That is to say,

he belongs to the latter, "named-only" kind of producer.

What he lent

was his credibility as a host of the nation,

to endorse this movie.

But how does the public see it?

What the public sees is:

"Even Wang Han is the producer.

"Then this movie surely can't be bad.

"A host of the nation will keep watch.

This is the power of celebrity endorsement.

It can give a movie that would otherwise be hard to promote

an instant halo of legitimacy.

But this kind of endorsement

is also, in reverse, a responsibility.

If your name is used to endorse a movie that beautifies crime,

and then you say "I didn't know what the movie was about" —

that itself is an excuse that doesn't hold up.

Because your "not knowing"

is the very premise on which this kind of business runs.

On May 19,

China Central Television stepped in to review it.

This is a clear political signal:

this movie cannot be released.

On May 20,

the production side announced the film was pulled.

Zhao Xiaohong's social media account was muted by the platform.

Yao Chen deleted the related Weibo and apologized.

Late at night on May 20,

Wang Han posted his apology.

In it he made three things clear:

One,

he apologized for not properly vetting the background.

Two,

he did not invest in this movie.

Three,

he has cut ties with the production,

and the production has removed his credit.

In PR terms,

this apology was released fast,

and stated cleanly.

But the public may not buy it.

The reason is that in recent years the script of celebrity "crashes" in China

has become too familiar.

Endorsing fake diet pills,

endorsing shady cosmetic clinics,

endorsing investment schemes that collapse —

every time something goes wrong it's the same sentence:

"I was deceived too.

"I've already stopped working with them.

"I apologize to the public.

This repeated script

has devalued the very word "apology."

And for Wang Han,

there's a more specific problem:

he and director Qin Xiaoyu have collaborated several times before.

They aren't strangers.

Saying "I didn't review it carefully"

has limited persuasive power.

But on the other hand,

we should also give an equal-weighted perspective.

Wang Han isn't the director.

Not the screenwriter.

Not the producer-of-record.

Not the investor.

He didn't alter the verdict.

He didn't even appear in any core creative stage of the production.

His fault is "lending his name and being negligent,"

not "leading the project and deceiving."

The two

are morally distinct.

On the Chinese internet,

these two things often get scolded as one.

Everyone remotely involved gets hunted by the same standard.

That itself is also a kind of crudeness.

At this point,

I want to pull the view back a little.

This movie, "Mother From Prison,"

actually pulled several threads of Chinese society taut

all within a single week.

One thread is about "truth."

The movie was labeled "adapted from a true story."

Audiences paid, cried, and empathized based on that sentence.

When that sentence itself is fake,

then this movie's business model

is built on a single deception of the entire audience.

One thread is about "forgiveness."

Zhao Xiaohong was released.

In the legal sense she paid the price.

Should society give her a second chance?

The answer is yes.

But "giving a second chance" and "filming her as an innocent"

are two completely different things.

The former is tolerance,

the latter is falsification.

One thread is about "celebrity responsibility."

Almost every "crash" in China's entertainment industry over the past decade

has the same mechanism behind it:

lend your name → don't vet → it blows up → cut ties.

The audience's response to this rhetoric

has gone from belief,

to doubt,

to, now, complete impatience.

The last thread

is about "the verdict."

Ordinary people in China

basically don't read court verdicts in daily life.

But this week,

Zhao Xiaohong's verdict was pulled out by a lawyer,

spread by netizens,

compared point by point against the movie's promotion.

This is a rather remarkable Chinese internet phenomenon:

the public, on its own initiative, using a judicial document

to rebut the narrative of a film.

This is a kind of maturity.

But this maturity

was bought with disappointment after disappointment.

Wang Han isn't the core of this matter.

Zhao Xiaohong and Qin Xiaoyu are.

But the reason Wang Han's apology

drew so much discussion

is that he is the most-trusted link in this chain.

When the most-trusted person

also took part in something like this, even just by "lending his name and being negligent" —

the public's disappointment

will, in turn, reshape their trust in the whole industry.

There will be no movie on May 30.

Zhao Xiaohong's account is shut down.

Yao Chen apologized.

Wang Han apologized.

The production pulled the film.

But the real impact of this matter

may take much longer to see.

Finally I want to ask you a question:

If one day,

someone you deeply respect

does something that disappoints you,

and then apologizes to you.

Will you forgive them?

How long are you willing to spend

to trust them again?

Think about it.

Okay.

That's all for today.

See you in the next story.