KwanTeo Film Archive · Work
Prison Bird
断匙Prison Bird is a feature-length graduation film made by a Shantou University student team, with Hu Xiaojing as chief director. Adapted from a real homicide case, it approaches the events through several participants' perspectives.
About the Work
Prison Bird was made by students at Shantou University as a graduation film. The filmmakers drew on a real homicide case and reworked it for the screen. The film opens by disclosing that a suspect has been arrested and a body found. Four thematic segments then revisit the events from different participants' perspectives.
Instead of recreating the crime itself, the filmmakers focused on motive and on changes in the central character's life and state of mind. Chief director Hu Xiaojing said the team wanted to move beyond a campus story and explore the complexities of human behaviour. He Haoxiang wrote the screenplay and directed photography; Wu Xiangting was the producer, and Chen Huimin led the art direction.
Work on the script began in October 2016 and went through eight drafts. A 32-person team shot the film between January and April 2017. Running about 100 minutes, it screened at Shantou's Hesheng Cinema on 15 June during the university's graduation-project exhibition.