Review of 12 Citizens

We all know that the original 12 Angry Men is the best film ever about the common law system. The jury, the reasonable doubt principle and the highly compacted one room conflict, it both features highly talented Sidney Lumet and 12 unforgettable actors. However, in this Chinese remake, the setting of the story is a joke by all means. In a communist country where there never has an independent legal system, the story is about 12 boring parents (coincidentally, all male, not a single female) who just pretend they are jurors to finish their children's western legal system re-exam. The director show no special talent when he clearly just copies everything from the original film like the 1997 TV remake. Unlike Russian remake by Nikita Mikhalkov, the storyline is not changed at all. The details is indeed modern Chinese urban area, the audience sure can learn something if he wants to know modern China, but from the cinematic perspective, this film it's a total cliché. The most unbelievably ridiculous thing of this film is that, in this version, juror no.8, original played by Henry Fonda, is not an architect but a COMMUNIST STATE PROSECUTOR.