Wo 11 (2011)

In the final years of the Cultural Revolution, between 1975 and 1976, an 11-year-old boy in a remote mountain town in southwestern China experiences a murder incident. The story reflects ordinary people’s lives in the late Cultural Revolution, including the family life in an underdeveloped region of intellectuals drawn into the Third Front construction project, the lingering effects of factional fighting during the Cultural Revolution, the power structure of Mao-era hierarchical society, and young people’s uncertainty about the future. The film is filled with “innocent sexuality, feelings that cannot be put to rest, and death.” Wang Han is an 11-year-old student. He and Ba Latou, Little Mouse, and Wei Jun are close friends who often play together. One day, his teacher chooses him to lead the morning exercises. Wanting to stand confidently in front of all his classmates and lead them through the exercises, he begs his mother to buy him a white shirt. At first, she refuses because she is reluctant to spend the money, and Wang Han sulks at her. Eventually, his mother uses a year’s worth of cloth coupons to buy fabric and sew him a white shirt by hand. He treasures it dearly. One day, while playing by the river with his friends, Wang Han accidentally drops his shirt into the water, where it floats. He blames his three friends, angering them and making them leave. After fishing the shirt out, he hangs it on a tree branch to dry quickly in the wind. Just then, Xie Jueqiang, a murderer with a gunshot wound to the abdomen, passes by as he flees. To stop the bleeding, he snatches the shirt and escapes into the mountains. In order to get his beloved shirt back, Wang Han goes into the mountains to find the fugitive. When they meet, Xie Jueqiang tells Wang Han to find him some herbs to stop the bleeding, threatens him not to reveal his hiding place to anyone, and promises that he will eventually return a new shirt to him. Back home, Wang Han lies to his mother, saying that the shirt had floated downstream, which makes her angry too. Later, in an effort to make peace with the three friends he has fallen out with, Wang Han tells them the secret of the fugitive’s hiding place. Little Mouse, who talks too much, immediately passes the information on to their teacher. A large number of armed police surround the mountain area and search for Xie Jueqiang, but without success. Finally, one night, Xie Jueqiang is caught after setting a fire. He is sentenced to death for murder and arson. Later, a white shirt arrives for Wang Han from the prison. It turns out that Xie Jueqiang had asked his father to buy it and had asked the prison to send it back to Wang Han on his behalf. At the end of the story, the four children run toward the execution ground while listening to a radio broadcast announcing that a group of death-row prisoners are about to be publicly executed. When Wang Han hears Xie Jueqiang’s name, he suddenly stops.