“Dad Killed Mom”: After Death Sentence Is Final, Director Chokes Up Over Whether the Film Should Be Released

The documentary My Father Is a Death-Row Prisoner begins with a family rupture that has never ended. In 2002, Cheng Yi-hsiu’s father, Cheng Wu-sung, killed Cheng’s mother. His death sentence has become final, yet he remains in prison awaiting execution. Cheng therefore lives with the double burden of being related to both the victim and the perpetrator.

Whenever a major criminal case sparks calls in Taiwan for harsher punishment, Cheng’s emotions return to the same impossible conflict: is the man who killed his mother a criminal who deserves to die, or is he still her father and Cheng’s flesh-and-blood relative? The film brings Cheng together with two other children of death-row prisoners. Their backgrounds differ, but tragedy has given them a shared history of absent fathers, pending executions and pain they struggle to explain to outsiders.

Director Li Chia-hua said he once hesitated over whether to release the film. He feared that the death-penalty issue, already marked by deep disagreement, could produce more division and misunderstanding. Yet that concern also strengthened his belief that the film needed to be seen.

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My Father Is a Death-Row Prisoner is not trying to provide an answer. It hopes to create, through images, a space for mutual understanding and to give different people a chance to be heard. If this film is not released, one possible conversation disappears.

“My Father Is a Death-Row Prisoner is not trying to provide an answer. It hopes to create, through images, a space for mutual understanding and to give different people a chance to be heard,” Li said. “If this film is not released, one possible conversation disappears.”

Li’s 2019 documentary, My Son Is a Death-Row Prisoner, examined the background of death-penalty cases from the parents’ perspective. The new film turns to the children, following their daily lives and conversations as it explores how family tragedy and a loved one’s prolonged wait for execution shape their personalities, relationships and life choices.

The director said he originally wanted to film the children of perpetrators, but changed direction to protect several participants who were still minors. Years later, he completed the project he had first imagined. The documentary opened in Taiwan after its Taipei premiere on September 2 and was scheduled for general release from September 4.

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In fact, I originally wanted to film the children of perpetrators.