"My Dad is a Death Row Prisoner": Focusing on the silent trauma of children of death row prisoners

(Deutsche Welle Chinese website) After Taiwan's Legislative Yuan passed a referendum on caning in August, but it was rejected by the Central Election Commission and could not be put to a referendum, the Kuomintang legislative group once again proposed a draft amendment to "increase caning into law" at the end of September. Taiwanese people's support for harsh punishments and the death penalty has always been high. After the Constitutional Court interpreted the constitution in 2024, Taiwan has narrowed its restrictions to extremely strict substantive conditions such as a unanimous decision by a collegial panel of judges before the death penalty can be imposed. Taiwan’s Ministry of Justice carried out the death penalty for the first time in accordance with the law on January 16, 2025, after the interpretation of the constitution.

When the public's attention is generally focused on how to uphold justice and severely punish crimes through "whipping" and "restarting the death penalty," director Li Jiahua's new film "My Dad is a Death Row Prisoner" turns the lens to the shadows behind the noise. It does not talk about the rights and wrongs of the law, nor does it attempt to confront mainstream public opinion. Instead, it attempts to uncover the lifelong imprint of the state apparatus and public opinion on innocent third parties - the children of death row prisoners - when executing justice.

The documentary takes the perspective of three children of death row inmates and captures the impact they received after their father committed the crime. Zheng Wusong, a death row inmate interviewed in the film, worked as a tow truck driver in 2002. Suspecting his ex-wife to have an affair with the foreman surnamed Chen of a leather factory, he sneaked into the factory and killed two people with a knife. He then surrendered and was sentenced to death in 2005. He has been in prison for more than 21 years and has yet to be executed. Zheng Wusong and his ex-wife's son Zheng Yixiu (15 years old at the time) is the protagonist of the film. Another son Zheng Zhiyuan (17 years old at the time) also appears in the documentary. They are both the perpetrator's family members and the victim's family members. Other children of death row prisoners are shown in the film with their identities concealed out of consideration for the feelings of the victims' families.

DW: Why did you choose to start from the perspective of the children of executed prisoners?

Li Jiahua: Actually, I originally wanted to shoot from the perspective of the children of executed prisoners. However, when we decided to shoot the death penalty issue in 2016, we conducted field research and contacted several potential interviewees. But the subjects we met at that time were all minors. In order to protect them, we had to change the direction and shoot the parents of the death row prisoners first, which is called "My Son is a Death Row Prisoner".

When "My Son Was a Death Row" was released, one of the people interviewed came to see the movie. After reading it, he told me that he was very touched because it was the first time someone was willing to tell a story from their perspective, and it was also the first time he felt understood and empathized with. At that time, I originally thought that this would "complete my merits" and I could go home. But after listening to his story, I suddenly realized that maybe there are still some unfinished things in this film.

Looking back at "My Son Is a Death Row", I feel there are still a lot of regrets in it. We were subject to various conditions at the time. Although we chatted a lot with the interviewees, our mutual trust may not be deep enough. At the end of the movie, a large part is explained by legal practitioners, and there is relatively little space for actual contact with the parties. So I began to think, if there is an opportunity this time, should I finish the things that I originally wanted to do but have not completed.

Zheng Wusong’s case has always attracted me. Later, I happened to meet his son Yixiu by chance, and I also received help from some people. It made me feel as if everything was telling me that I should make this film. But honestly, this shoot was several times more painful than the last one. In fact, I have always wanted to escape, and I really don’t want to touch the issue of the death penalty again.

DW: Was it difficult to gain their trust?

Li Jiahua: There was no clear moment when I felt, “Now they completely trust me.” To this day I can’t say they completely trust me. My method of filming is to become friends with the interviewees, so on the surface we are very close, but in each individual interview, I will realize that there is still a wall between us.

I asked them: "Did your father's incident hurt you badly?" The three people's answers were similar, they all said: "It was not affected, I am living a good life." They were not lying to me, but they felt that even if they told me, I wouldn't understand. This is the ever-present gap between us, we are always the outsiders.

But when the three kids get together, it's a completely different story. As soon as they sat down they said, "My dad really killed me." Another person immediately understood: "My dad did too." It was clear to me in that moment that they had a resonance with each other that we will never fully understand.

When we arranged for them to meet for the first time, we even spent an hour playing three short videos about their respective fathers' cases. Because they actually don’t know much about their father’s case. Their family members don’t tell them, and their father doesn’t tell them either. The reports in the media are fragmentary. Their first reaction after watching it was: "So this is what happened to my dad." Later, the three of them chatted together. They originally expected to only rent the camera studio for 6 hours, but they ended up chatting from lunch to dinner.

I think it's not just filming, it's also some kind of mutual healing. For the first time, someone said to them, "I understand." But it was precisely because they were so close that filming became very painful. Documentaries are most afraid of two things: first, nothing happens and you don’t know what to film; second, something happens, and that’s usually not a good thing.

When I heard that Yi Xiu had an accident (he attempted to commit suicide), my first thought was: "There is something to shoot." Then I went home and fell into a strong self-loathing, feeling that I was actually happy to shoot content because my friend was injured. The last time a similar situation happened, I decided I would never shoot this subject again because I could no longer bear the emotional labor.

DW: Do you think the children of death row prisoners are also punished by society?

Li Jiahua: I think the family members of the perpetrators are also victims. In fact, they did nothing wrong, but in Taiwan, and even in Chinese culture as a whole, the concept of family and the idea of ​​"sitting together" are still very strong. If Zheng Jie did such a terrible thing, many people would hope that his parents would take responsibility. But if you really understand the situation of their family, you will find that his parents may not know what happened at all, and they themselves did nothing wrong.

It is easy for parents of death row inmates to think that they have taught their children bad things; but children of death row prisoners may think: What does this have to do with me? The two girls in the film actually don't know their father very well. When they were growing up, their father was constantly in and out of prison, but one day they were suddenly told: Your father has done something terrible. In school, some people even use the "no father" thing to care about them. They may wonder, what did they do wrong?

I think their mentality is healthier to some extent than the parents of death row prisoners, because they know they are innocent. But, how could it have no impact? They may have to move once every three months, sometimes living with their uncle's house, then living with their uncle's house, and living under someone else's roof for a long time. In adolescence, there are no fixed elders that you can rely on, and you don’t know whether the people around you really care about you. They may downplay these things because it's become a daily routine, but that doesn't mean they aren't hurt.

Some children go their entire lives without knowing what their father did. If the family is unwilling to tell, grandma will say: "Children, don't ask." Or the father may just say: "That's just the way it is, there's nothing to say." They can only look it up online, but media reports are usually fragmentary and they can't really understand the full story of the case. We later compiled the files and interviewed the lawyers, allowing them to get a relatively complete understanding of the different versions of my father’s case for the first time. It was then that they discovered that all they had known all along was "Dad killed someone" or "Dad did something", but they had never really heard their father's version of the case.

DW: Are you worried that your work will be interpreted as "whitewashing" death row prisoners?

Li Jiahua: I don’t think this movie is whitewashing the prisoners on death row. Before discussing the system of death penalty, we must first admit that death row prisoners are also human beings. If we are not even willing to discuss whether he is a person, then there is no need to talk about the system.

What I do is to let everyone see that they are human beings too. For many people, as long as they treat "animals" as human beings, it is a whitewash. If this is called whitewashing, then I will "wash whitewash". But I believe that the rule of law and procedural justice protect everyone, not just good people. This “all persons” also includes persons who have committed serious crimes. If we can use various reasons to deprive bad people of their rights today, tomorrow someone may use the same reasons to deprive us of our rights. So protecting their rights is not just about protecting them, but also about protecting ourselves.

DW: How do you deal with the pain of victims and their families?

Li Jiahua: Understanding someone does not mean forgiving someone. Seeing his situation does not mean denying the harm he caused. Human suffering is inherently incomparable. The pain of the victim's family and the pain of the perpetrator's family are not the same kind of pain, and they cannot be compared with each other. But that doesn’t mean we can only choose one side.

No one who supports the abolition of death cares about the status and rights of the victim's family; similarly, caring about the rights of the perpetrator's family does not mean that it conflicts with the rights of the victim's family. I hope that the families of the victims and the families of the perpetrators can live well. Just because I want the victim's family to live well, I cannot expect that the perpetrator's family must die together.

DW: What do you want pro-death penalty viewers to see?

Li Jiahua: From beginning to end, I don’t want this to be a movie that provides answers. I'm not telling the audience that from now on you should be for the death penalty or you should be against it. I was originally a very supportive person of the death penalty. Later, as I began to do my homework and truly understand this issue, I slowly swayed and finally changed my position.

So I hope to be able to hand over my original experience to the audience: let them discover that this matter may be different from what they originally thought, and maybe they can think about it again. It doesn't matter that you still support the death penalty in the end. But you cannot assume that there is nothing wrong with this system without doing your homework.

I feel that Taiwanese society often relies too much on intuition when facing major public policies. Everyone thinks they already know the answer. You can decide whether to buy stocks based on your intuition, because in the end you will bear the loss yourself; but public policy affects the entire society, and you cannot make decisions based on intuition alone. Therefore, what I hope to do is not to persuade anyone to change their position, but to slightly loosen everyone's original firm answers, so that everyone is willing to listen and understand first, and then decide where to stand.

People who support the death penalty and those who oppose it actually have many common goals. We all hope that the families of the victims can live a good life, we all hope to reduce the crime rate, and we all hope that the system will be effective and helpful to society. The real difference between us may just be the different paths of belief. Since the ultimate goal is the same, why should we regard each other as enemies?

I now remind myself to listen to what the other person wants to say first. Because when I looked back and understood my original feelings about supporting the death penalty, I discovered that those people were not as different from me as I thought.

This film is different from the previous one. The previous part was more like discussing the system: Why does the death penalty happen? What happens after the death penalty? This time, I want to return to the human state and let the audience see what happens to a person's life after being affected by this system.

If the audience feels they had a good time after watching it, then I have nothing to say. But if you really see the relationship between Zhiyuan, Yixiu, and other children and their father, you will find that they are actually aggrieved, but they are not very good at speaking out.

DW: Are you worried about being criticized for not being objective?

Li Jiahua: Documentaries can never be completely objective. If someone tells you that documentaries are objective, there are only two possibilities: first, he does not understand documentaries; second, he is lying to you. Documentaries must have choices, perspectives, and the position of the photographer. If documentaries were truly objective, there would be no need to watch them.

If you ask me again now, I am still against the death penalty. But the film is not about telling the audience directly "you should support the death penalty" or "you should be against the death penalty." I hope that the audience will not judge too early, but do their homework first and understand that this issue may be different from what they originally thought.

Deutsche Welle is committed to providing you with objective and neutral news reports, as well as commentary and analysis from a variety of perspectives. The views expressed in this article represent only the personal positions of the interviewees.