On March 17, 1967, the poet Ah Long died of bone marrow cancer in prison. On April 2, 1968, my father Peng Boshan was beaten to death by the Red Guards. The two men never met each other or had any direct connection, but due to. being involved in the same case, they both died of the same cause—punishment for the crime of being "Hu Feng Counterrevolutionary Clique" members.

In those years, death was a daily matter. Even when facing my father's death, I, then fourteen, felt quite rational. I do not know how we were so "strong" then. Many years later, after I studied and lived in New York for seven years, I began to learn about the value of a human being and to realize the meaning of my family and my father to me. Looking back, it is shocking that I was once so "strong." We were so brainwashed that we did not value our lives. I had the urge to reflect upon the past; and this perhaps was my initial motivation to make Storm under the Sun with S. Louisa Wei.

I had not read many of Ah Long's poems or heard about him from my parents. While making the film, I often thought of a short line from an untitled poem written in the wartime year of 1944: "I am innocent." Today, I can feel the spiritual power carried by these three words. I often look at Ah Long's photos. Even in military uniform he looks more like a scholar. He reminds me of my father, another intellectual who served in the military. My mother called him "an insufficiently strong man" because of his sensitivity.

I have been thinking, how did these intellectuals kept their honesty during the long years of war and political movements? What gave them the courage to treasure the value of an individual? With a Japanese splinter in his eyes, the poet Ah Long fought many battles during the years of White Terror before 1949. But in his trial during the Red Terror, he could only announce his innocence with silence.

On June 23, 1965, shortly after the trial, Ah Long wrote to the investigator: "From the root, the Hu Feng Counter-Revolutionary Case is manipulated, fabricated, a forgery!" At the time, did Ah Long know that it was Mao who wrote the "Editorial" accompanying the People's Daily article titled "Some Materials about the Hu Feng Anti-Communist Group" on May 13th, 1955? (The "Materials" were reprinted by People's Press and then by provincial presses. From June to July in 1955, Shanghai reprinted the "Materials" eight times with 600,000 copies.) Whether Ah Long knew about it is no longer important. What matters is that he analyzed a case that had been wronged for ten years, stating to the ruling party that, "If a Party lies to its people, it is already morally corrupted." At the end of Ah Long's letter, however, he still placed his hope in Mao, wishing for a "happy ending." This is where the biggest irony lies!

That was already on the eve of Cultural Revolution. The People's Republic had spread the red wave in the entire country. The little red books formed a red ocean, hitting the Chinese people like radiation. We were all under the control of one voice. We lost our personal space, our independent thoughts, and even our simple desires. It was amidst the collective madness, that Ah Long, a prisoner, analyzed the case line by line and made his own voice heard.

When examining this event today, we can see clearly that Ah Long was in no position to address let alone debate the authorities. "Political persecution" was their plan from the beginning. After staying in prison for ten years, Ah Long and Hu Feng were on trial, listening to their friends testifying against them. These testimonies were revised and approved by authorities beforehand. Then the judge walked up to his place and formally sentenced Ah Long to 12 years, Hu Feng to 14 years and Jia Zhifang to 12 years of imprisonment. Ironic describes the lawful procedures to validate such an unlawful case.

The Law makes no mistake. Supposedly. No one dared to ask, what law, who made the law, who interpreted the law, and was the evidence valid. The complicated process behind the trial and the real judge of the case were all hidden. During the decade before the trial, forced confessions and various tortures never stopped. If the real judge behind the scenes had made the decision above the Law, why did he needed to play another game with the people through a farcical trial? Hu Feng and his group members were once respected poets and writers, but in this power-motivated trial they were reduced to pieces on a chess board at the mercy of the players.

Even in that unreasonable and absurd era, Ah Long held to his truth. I felt heartbroken at the realization that it was futile desperation to search for the truth or to clarify the facts under the hegemony. What is the value of truth? In political persecution, the real target is the truth. Whoever speaks the truth simply hastens his own death - and truth with him. The harder Hu Feng and his members tried in defending their truth, the more cruelly they were treated. If they had not defended truth, would life have been easier for them?

When reading through newspapers from 1955, I found a speech by my father denouncing the "Hu Feng Anti-Communist Clique" published in Shanghai's Wenhui Daily News in February. I was shocked that my father wrote something like it. I asked my mother Zhu Weiming. She said, "Your father had no other way. As the Minister of Propaganda in Shanghai, he had to follow instructions from the top." What was "the top"? Did "the top" have lawful evidence? No one asked these questions at the time - everyone had been brainwashed. My mother said, "Your father did not denounce Hu Feng's group that hard, only calling it an ‘anti-Communist Clique.'" "What can be worse?" "Calling it a Counter-revolutionary Clique." "Does it make any difference?" "Yes. An anti-Communist is still within the people, while counter-revolutionary is somewhere between people and their enemy. Your father tried to lighten up the matter." But my father word games saved no one. He was soon arrested as "the spokesman of the Hu Feng Counter-revolutionary Clique within the Communist Party." Shortly before Wenhui Daily published my father's speech, he burnt all of his letters from Hu Feng. These letters had accompanied my father throughout the war years. He had thrown away many necessary items, but had protected these letters with his life. These letters not only carried a friend's concern and spiritual support, but also brought meaning and beauty to those dark years. What my father could do during the wars, he could not do in the peace. He had burn those letters so they would not become counter-revolutionary evidence.

My mother often said, "Your father had a clear head about politics." This statement finally helped me to understand my father. Under the Red Terror, he defended the truth with his "clarity." My father was not as brave as Ah Long, who dared pronounce his innocence. He did not stand up for the truth, since he knew truth lacked political ground. He tried to protect his friends by making a concession. In the end, however, he died too early just like Ah Long did. Now we can look back to an era when truth had no foundation and defending the truth was meaningless. For Ah Long, my father, and other Hu Feng group members who never gave up principle of life, defending the truth with their life was a rational choice. Their choice validated the very existence of truth, but also the absurdity of such an existence. At the end of their lives, they could announce to the world: "I am innocent." There is a meaning in such a statement without regret.

Ah Long and others in the Hu Feng group completed their last poems for us with their lives: simple, pure, and reaching the highest state of poetry. I would have preferred to read more peaceful and cozy poems from them. A healthy society does not need poetry stained by blood. When we feel pain for their simplicity and purity today, is it because we are too jaded to bear their innocence? I like to think of them still writing poetry in heaven. In the reality of the present I hope their genes of brave nobility have been passed down our wounded nation.