Synopsis
Chairman Mao Zedong was looked upon as 'the Red Sun' in China when he was alive. Mao's deity status was achieved by destroying the autonomy of Chinese intellectuals and silencing them through the implementation of a Communist regime and through a series of political "storms" that fell fast and hard upon them. This film is about one such storm that fell upon Hu Feng, a renowned writer and literary theorist of the 1930s. Hu Feng was the first individual directly condemned by Mao and forced to endure 24 years of imprisonment. Mao personally initiated the Anti-Hu Feng Counter-Revolutionary Group Campaign in 1955, which resulted in the imprisonment of 78 Chinese intellectuals, mostly poets and writers, and led to the incrimination of more than 2,100 people. This documentary is the first to revisit these events after nearly half a century, inviting nearly 30 survivors of the harsh 'storm' to reveal the cruel truths that lie beneath China's official history. This representation of modern Chinese history is enriched with animation and other art forms such as woodcut prints, political posters, newsreel footage and photographs. The organization of these materials emphasizes the irony in the victims' tales, rather than the exposure of their suffering.
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