Blood Stained Youth
- Investigative
- Author's Point of View
Synopsis
Japan was defeated in 1945. After having been colonized by Japan for 50 years, Taiwan was put under the control of the government of the Republic of China. The concept of “Return to the Motherland’s became the spark that inflamed the ideals and hope of young intellectuals in Taiwan. They hoped to construct a new nation in which they would no longer be inferior citizens, a nation that would no longer suffer from the oppression and control of other nations.
The ideals and hope changed after the 2-28 incident in 1947 when the KMT Party retreated from mainland China after being defeated by the Chinese Communist. The dreams of the intellectual were shattered. The KMT, being frightened by “communism” and “socialism”, carried out a far-reaching reign of terror to round up all dissentients. The entire island was enveloped in a dark cloud of political reaction, as the KMT either imprisoned of killed dissidents.
source: Taiwan International Documentary Festival
Director Statement
"This is the first time that shooting a film was such a heavy experience for me. I wasn’t worried about how the film would be received, but was driven instead by a sense of mission. I wanted to make a film about a period in Taiwan’s history that has been distorted, to make a film about the victims of the White Terror. I’m not certain, however, that the issue of the White Terror of the 1950s will be treated with enough attention at the time when we are approaching.
I was moved again and again during making the film. The treatment of those persecuted and the youth wasted was heart-wrenching. But whatever pain I experience in filming, it can’t compare to the pain that the victims went through.
Each time I come face to face with those who were politically oppressed. I wonder if the documentary directors like me were born 30 years ago, would I now be buried in the unattended graveyard?" -- Chu-Chen Hsiao
source: Taiwan International Documentary Festival
Team
- Director