Execution in autumn

(QIU JUE)

The only heir to his family, coddled by his grandmother from childhood, Pei Gang has become a tyrant and a brute as a grown man. After having committed three murders in cold blood, he is arrested and condemned to death. His execution is to take place the following autumn, in respect of tradition. His grandmother has less than a year left to move heaven and earth and get her grandson released. As the hope of acquittal moves farther and farther away, she is going to make sure that Pei Gang conceives an heir to perpetuate the family line...

A sublime epoch drama, “Execution in autumn” gives us a poignant moral study on guilt and redemption. A central figure in Taiwan cinema since the 1960s, Lee Hsing bridges the gap between East and West with his humanism, worthy of Victor Hugo, coupled with Confuscian philosophy and spirituality. In this story of great sensitivity, given rhythm by the passage of time, the characters gradually reveal their complexity and their suffering.