Reviewed by e Howard Green. \u00a0Viewed at the Lobero Theatre, Santa Barbara, February 4th<\/p>\n
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Billed as a version of the famous Henry Fonda movie, 12 Angry Men<\/strong><\/em>, \u00a0the Chinese film drama\u00a012 Citizens<\/strong><\/em> takes the jury room process into a differing culture with dramatic results. \u00a0Here we see “jurors” from different socioeconomic backgrounds revealing their prejudices and feelings while debating the guilt or innocence of a rich young adopted man accused of murder of his birth father.<\/p>\n The opening scenes (act one) depict a University mock courtroom and trial.\u00a0 We are shown brief segments representing the testimony of key witnesses, which become subject of debate later. \u00a0 The “judge” charges the 12 citizens to come back with an unanimous decision, but not too quickly.<\/p>\n This has set up a natural conflict for the long second act, set in an over-sized industrial warehouse, decorated mostly\u00a0with a\u00a0table and 12 chairs. \u00a0The sparsity of visual distractions forces the viewer to focus on the players, the 12 personalities from vastly different backgrounds, as becomes evident by their approaches to justification of their viewpoints as to guilt or innocence.<\/p>\n Here the director effectively uses music, sound effects like a thunder storm, his camera\u00a0angles\u00a0and closeups to study the faces, positioning and placement of the players. \u00a0Some overhead long shots provide a different perspective, but mostly we are at eye level with the participants. \u00a0We can almost feel the emotions being richly expressed by the actors.<\/p>\n Don’t get up too quickly at the end. \u00a0Spoiler alert: there is are a few key frames at the end you won’t want to miss.<\/p>\n There are some elements that were hard to believe, for this Western viewer, that the concept of preponderance of evidence and presumption of innocence exist in Chinese justice system, \u00a0It seemed that they were introduced in the film as propaganda in an effort to show that democratic principles such as the “rights of man” exist in that society.<\/p>\n