Adelaide First Factual Films Festival – The Law of the Dragon

I’ll be at the F4 First Factual Films Festival in Adelaide this weekend and attending a screening of Weijun Chen’s documentary The Law of the Dragon. After the screening we’ll be having a discussion about the film and the issues it raises. The Law of the Dragon is a truly fascinating film about how the law and the Party works in dirt poor rural China – more details below.

THE LAW OF THE DRAGON

Director: Weijun Chen

Location: Mercury Cinema, Adelaide

Start: 03/03/2012 05:00 PM

Finish: 03/03/2012 06:20 PM

Admission: Free – No bookings. Tickets available on day from one hour prior to screening of first film.

The Law of the Dragon examines the way in which the Chinese legal system is trying to cope with the myriad recent dramatic changes to Chinese life and society by following the fortunes of a provincial legal practice, the Tiger Law Firm of Chengdu. Following on from the success of The Biggest Chinese Restaurant in the World, The Law of the Dragon will once more bring a new perspective to the lives of the billion Chinese people who make up the twenty-first century’s most powerful nation. With rare access to the Chinese court system the series will also cast a new light – from below – on a regime whose judiciary is the subject of much international attention and concern.

At the heart of Law of the Dragon stands the austere Judge Chen, who journeys with his team of court officials along mud tracks and grit roads, often having to be dug out by the locals, to ensure that justice is served. Their court is wherever they hang the national emblem, be it nailed up in the fields or stuck up in the plaintiff’s house. Squatting on rocks amongst a farmers crops to advise him on his rights might seem primitive and even faintly ridiculous, but to the people he deals with, Judge Chen is the law.

Chinese society is changing fast and the stories which The Law of the Dragon will tell will reflect those changes. In the family courts we will meet newly-divorced couples, some liberated from lovelsss arranged marriages, others facing a grim future separated from the only child who would traditionally have made a home for them. Businessmen raised in the former command economy confront the vicissitudes of bankruptcy or labour disputes, while thieves find opportunities as the gulf between the new rich and the poor creates a boom in so-called ‘crimes of envy’.

Directed by the award-winning documentary director Weijun Chen (Please Vote For Me, The Biggest Chinese Restaurant in the World), The Law of the Dragon will portray all drama, the high and lows, the strains and stresses that affect families and businesses alike daily as they seek to navigate the labyrinthine Chinese judiciary.

More details here