Taipei: Culture Minister Li Yuan on Sunday accused an as-yet-unreleased film about the unsolved 1980 murders of then-dissident Lin I-hsiung's family of "trampling on Taiwan's history and its people." Speaking to reporters in Taipei, Li described the portrayal of the massacre in "The Century Bloodshed" as "extremely inappropriate."
According to Focus Taiwan, the minister called the Lin family murders one of "Taiwan's most painful historical tragedies." He emphasized that the cold case should not be reinterpreted at will, warning that distorted portrayals could "undermine transitional justice." Li noted that the production did not obtain consent from Lin or his family, raising serious legal concerns. He added that actors might have been misled, further complicating the legal landscape.
Li stressed the difficulty in advancing transitional justice, attributing it to society's incomplete understanding of major historical events. He underscored the significance of the Lin family murders in Taiwan's history, cautioning against casual interpretations. Although rumors suggest Chinese backers for the film, Li could not confirm them. He criticized the production team's previous work, "The Shooting of 319," for its "extreme disdain and belittlement toward Taiwanese people."
The unsolved crime from decades ago involved Lin I-hsiung's mother and 6-year-old twin daughters, who were killed in their Taipei home on February 28, 1980, while Lin was imprisoned over the pro-democracy Kaohsiung Incident. The perpetrators remain unidentified. According to the Chinese-language Mirror Media, which cited a leaked script, "The Century Bloodshed" suggests another dissident orchestrated the killings as political revenge. However, the Transitional Justice Commission described this theory as "flawed" in a 2020 report.
The report criticized authorities for failing to investigate how the crime could occur under constant government surveillance. It pointed out that investigators did not seriously examine whether the Kuomintang government ordered the crime or if rogue personnel carried it out, leading to missed opportunities to solve the case.
Following public backlash, Kou Shih-hsun, a 71-year-old star of the film, publicly apologized to the Lin family for his lack of understanding of historical trauma's potential for "secondary harm." Kou admitted that his upbringing and environment limited his perspective on how authoritarian systems intertwine personal backgrounds with prevailing ideologies. He acknowledged underestimating the script's potential to introduce bias in portraying real events.
"In the future, I will urge myself to gain a more comprehensive understanding of historical truths and humbly learn about the social responsibility an actor must bear when portraying subjects related to historical trauma," Kou said. He urged the film's producers to halt further production and distribution until "proper authorization" is obtained.