Kevin H.J. Lee│ 120mins│HD│ 2017
At the 2016 Taipei Film Award ceremony, the director Kevin Lee won the Press Award for his film “The Taste of Apple”. In his acceptance speech, he thanked the existence of freedom of speech in Taiwan for allowing him to speak freely, while he also publicly criticized the Chinese government’s thought-control policies on the subjects of Taiwanese independence, Tibet, Xinjiang and the Falun Gong. This outpouring inadvertently became the inspiration for this film, “Self-censorship”. The majority of the project’s production costs were acquired via internet crowdfunding, which garnered the support of 668 sponsors. With an additional subsidy from the National Culture and Arts Foundation, the film was able to be completed in its entirety.
“Self-censorship” begins by depicting a series of protests by the Beijing artist, Hua Yong, which eventually led to his arrest and imprisonment by the Chinese government. It subsequently moves to the mysterious disappearances of five shareholders from Causeway Bay Books in Hong Kong, and then onto incidents involving Chou Tzi-yu, Leon Dai and Lee Ming-che. It thoroughly, and in great detail, exposes the Chinese government’s pervasive control over “Greater Chinese” society. The Taiwanese may think that they unlike Hong Kongers, the Chinese government cannot take any actions against them because they live in Taiwan and are not celebrities. However, the director’s journeys between China, Hong Kong and Taiwan prove that even the fate of a grouper breeder is determined by the whims of the Chinese government. Unless you have chosen to reject the financial temptations offered by the Chinese government and are determined to live as your own person and as a free individual, you will have no chance escaping from their control and your own self-censorship.
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