At the Movies: "Cannot Prove" tells story of humanity and law

A prosecutor is looking into a killing which happened 20 years before, only to discover that the suspect is the man who seduced his mother and caused his father to die in a fury of grief.

In "Cannot Prove" a young prosecutor, Guo Jingyua, works to collect enough evidence to support the death penalty for the man, principally as an act of revenge.

Though evidence and witnesses suggest the suspect is the likely killer of an unidentified man whose remains are found in the wild by hikers 20 years after he was killed, Guo eventually lacks substantial evidence to prove it is a case of murder rather than manslaughter.

Manslaughter cases have a statutory limitation period of 10 years and the case has gone far beyond that.

Eventually the court finds the suspect innocent, his innocence presumed in the absence of proof to the contrary.

"It reveals to the audience how China's judicial system works and how it is being reformed," said producer Zhang Qiying, chairman of Beijing Flying Asparas and Phantom Culture Communication Co. Ltd. "Court investigations are becoming more open and transparent, and death penalties are not given out as randomly as some people may think."

Cannot Prove is adapted from the novel of the same name by Zhu Xiaohua, a prosecutor-turned-writer from south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

Zhu's novel won the praise of Mo Yan, the first Chinese author to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, who was artistic director of the film.

"Mo Yan stressed humanity," said Zhu. "He said good films should tell good stories, so we focused on Guo's struggle: a struggle between his urge to revenge and his faith in the law."

Guo Jingyuan is a man with profound knowledge in his profession, but encumbered by trauma and selfishness brought about through his childhood suffering.

After a press preview in Beijing last week, most of the audience said the character was "vivid and approachable", according to producer Zhang Qiying.

In an interview with Xinhua, Zhang said he hoped the film would be a hit this summer and hopefully take a share of the box office, which is now dominated by Universal's "Jurassic World".

"China is currently stressing rule of law and is pushing ahead with judicial reforms," said Zhang. "So ordinary Chinese people are eager to learn more about the judicial system in an easy, comprehensible way."

The film represents his team's efforts to stage a human interest story, instead of a propaganda piece.

"Such themes may have been banned in the past," said Zhang, "when suspects were not let go so easily and innocent people were sometimes wrongly convicted or even put to death."

"Cannot Prove" is the first of 30 crime movies his team will produce in the next three to five years, said Zhang. Endi