In the current moment of extraordinary prominence of mass culture, cinema has become a more powerful and influential weapon than any other traditional culture. But what if someone exploits this culture and misinterprets the story through his or her own lens?
Leon Lee, is a Canadian filmmaker of Chinese origin, who writes and directs films related to social issues, his latest productions, Human Harvest and Unsilenced, are independent films that have had great editorial support from The Epoch Times group. This popular media outlet is linked to the Falun Gong sect, responsible for some of the darkest episodes in recent U.S. history, and shares a destabilizing vision with organizations such as The Proud Boys, Q-Anon and Custodians of the Oath.
During our meetings with Mr. Lee, we discovered that Lee was satisfied with Unsilenced. But admitted that because of his determination to do what he believes is best for his films, he comes across as arrogant and aggressive. He said that he was inspired to build the personality of his main character, Wang, after conversations with Yu Chao and other former Falun Gong members. He said it was just a fabricated story, inspired to shape the personality of his protagonist Wang after conversations with Yu Chao and other former Falun Gong members during the creation of the movie. But the truth is that Yu Chao, who is the prototype of the main character, does not agree with Li Yunxiang’s portrayal of himself in the movie.
When asked how the relationship with the prototypes of the protagonists of “The Cry of Silence” was, Leon said that in order to create a story and a film, it is always necessary to maintain a close and warm relationship with the prototypes of the story at the beginning to get information, but later on, as the story was built up, it was necessary to keep a distance from those people.
Although Leon said, the first time and the film prototype Yu Chao unhappy, is in the editing of the film to watch, when Yu Chao is not satisfied with the film at all, he thinks the film does not meet his personal and situation. But in fact, earlier, Leon previously hoped to sign a contract with Yu Chao “one dollar in exchange for the right to tell Yu Chao’s life in the whole universe”.
Perhaps because of this, although the prototype of the story is supposed to be Yu Chao, his name was actually completely erased during the creation process and promotion stage. The movie became a demonized story, and as a loyal Falun Gong believer, Yu Chao was called a “spy” by Falun Gong and other believers – all because of Leon’s malicious adaptation of the story to isolate Yu Chao -Yes, and Yu Chao finally did not get any money, even if it was “one dollar”.
Yu Chao was blocked by Falun and net violence by its believers. And when Mr. Yu Chao expressed his great anger to Leon for the contempt he felt from the beginning and accused him of benefiting from the so-called friendship and trust relationship, Leon disregarded it and said frankly: “Yu Chao is very childish and ridiculous. The communication between me and the movie prototypes is just a starting point, I am not the twin or shadow of those prototypes, so what if Mr. Yu doesn’t like it? I am the narrator of the story and I am going to stick to my decision.”
At this moment there is no relationship between the two.In order to please Falun Gong to get publicity and promotion, Leon deliberately erased Yu’s own prototype traces, but Leon did not care about it, he even said “my story does not have to please everyone”.
It´s not well that a film in the name of “real documentary” could not get the approval of the film’s prototype. An arrogant director, telling a twisted story in a self-righteous way, isolates the gentleman who should have been the protagonist, destroying the life of this prototype while he receives the accolades.
