I have never been in the cinema to watch a movie before, because "Article 20" directed by Zhang Yimou is a legal film about "legitimate defense" in Article 20 of the Criminal Law, and the audience recognition is very high, but the evaluation of my fellow lawyers is mixed, so I walked into the cinema for the first time ** "Article 20", I want to talk about the two points of watching "Article 20" from my point of view.
1. There is a lack of defenders for the film "Article 20".。The film "Article 20" tells the story of the prosecutor's positive interpretation and argumentation of the first paragraph of Article 20 of the Criminal Law "legitimate defense" through the "Wang Yongqiang Intentional Injury Case", and creates a fair and just image of prosecutors Han Ming and Lu Lingling who are not afraid of leadership intervention and adhere to the bottom line of the law. The storyline and acting skills of the actors in "Article 20" are impeccable, but from my perspective as a criminal defense lawyer, "Article 20" has structural flaws, that is, the absence of a defender is a big failure, and it is even suspected of scandalizing lawyers, which also reflects that even Zhang Yimou's director-level boss still has a long way to go in cultivating "awareness of the rule of law". In the film, prosecutor Han Ming said that in fact, the 452 articles of the Criminal Law talk about "fairness and justice", yes, a criminal case goes through a whole set of procedures from the public security filing and investigation, the procuratorate review and prosecution, and the court trial, and if there is no defense lawyer involved, the criminal suspect and defendant may become "lambs to be slaughtered". Therefore, the Criminal Procedure Law has designed a top-level design of an "isosceles triangle with a balance between prosecution and defense", which can at least ensure procedural fairness and justice, which is of great significance for preventing unjust, false and wrongly decided cases and realizing substantive fairness and justice. In October 2017, the Supreme People's Court and the Ministry of Justice jointly promulgated the "Measures on Carrying out Pilot Work on Covering Defense Counsel in Criminal Cases", which has basically achieved full coverage of defense counsel in criminal cases. 
The film "Article 20" begins with "Wang Yongqiang suspected of intentional injury" transferred by the investigation organ to the people's procuratorate for review and prosecution, and the victim's family (malign forces) surrounded the door of the procuratorate, and everyone was indignant and pressured the prosecutor to ask for an explanation, which indicates that the case has a high degree of social attention and great impact, and there is a huge controversy between crime and non-crime. Therefore, for Wang Yongqiang, it belongs to the scope of the state that should appoint a lawyer to defend him, but in this case, during the entire period of the procuratorate's review for prosecution, the period of the two withdrawals, and the entire procedure of the hearing, Wang Yongqiang never had a defender, and there was no defender to put forward Wang Yongqiang's defense opinion that constituted legitimate defense, which shows that Wang Yongqiang's defense rights are lacking (fortunately, if he met Prosecutor Lu Lingling, if he did not meet a prosecutor like Lu Lingling in reality, and Wang Yongqiang did not have a defender, Then Wang Yongqiang's fate will have to rewrite the script). Not only that, in order to set off the positive image of the prosecutor, the film did not forget to scandalize the lawyer, when the victim's family surrounded the door of the procuratorate, a young man stood out in the crowd who claimed to be the victim's ** lawyer Chen, the lawyer Chen was as emotional as the victim's family, and questioned in public the prosecutor's inappropriate words such as delaying the case handling procedures and providing protection for the "bad guys", lacking the most basic rationality of the legal person and the rule of law attribute of the legal person. The role of the client, Director Zhang, who was ruthlessly counted down and despised by him, to be honest, I felt very uncomfortable, the lack of a defender in "Article 20", and the lawyer was portrayed as a villain, which was incomprehensible. In addition, the film "Article 20" also presents a strange appearance that is divorced from reality, that is, in order to highlight the righteous image of the prosecutor, the film successfully portrays the host prosecutors Lu Lingling and Han Ming as Wang Yongqiang's defenders, and "defends" Wang Yongqiang in legitimate defense. However, at the "hearing held by the procuratorate on the "Wang Yongqiang case", it is really surprising that the lawyer's representative was portrayed as a "prosecutor". Therefore, I think that from the perspective of criminal defense profession, "Article 20" is a major failure of legal education (there are too many "artificial" plots in the plot), and it also reflects the weak "awareness of the rule of law" of the elites and the public, including director Zhang Yimou, and the lack of attention to the lawyer system, which more intuitively reflects that the current professional environment of lawyers is not ideal. 
2. Wang Yongqiang is the lucky one in Article 20, but who can be the lucky one in judicial practice? The cases in the film are all from real cases, but it is difficult to achieve fairness and justice in reality with so many accidental coincidences in the film, but I think that the main driving force to promote every case to fairness and justice in reality is the power of **, otherwise there is a high probability that it is like Prosecutor Han Ming searched for cases that could have been acquitted according to legitimate defense for many years, and they were all found guilty, and they can only blame the fate of the parties, and they can only persuade the parties to accept their lives. Wasn't the bus driver who was personally led by Prosecutor Han Ming guilty of being prosecuted for intentional injury after being prosecuted for righteous and courageous crimes? If it weren't for the bus driver who had an accident on the way to petition? If it weren't for the bus driver's daughter questioning Han Ming, what if you were a bus driver? What if Wang Yongqiang's wife, Hao Xiuping, hadn't exchanged her death for her husband's light sentence? If there is no dialogue between Prosecutor Lu Lingling and that Hao Xiuping committed suicide out of despair of the law? If it weren't for Han Ming's son facing the dilemma of public security punishment for his righteous and courageous actions? If there is no Han Ming's son, is it wrong to ask Han Ming to be righteous and brave? Will Prosecutor Han Ming change his view on Wang Yongqiang's case at the hearing? Does Prosecutor Han Ming dare to resist the pressure and make the right opinion? If Han Ming still behaves with the psychology of the early days of his post, will Wang Yongqiang face more than ten years in prison? However, how can there be so many ifs in real cases? In reality, how many prosecutors like Lu Lingling and Han Ming are there? As a criminal defense lawyer, I have to deal with the police, prosecutors, and judges almost every day, what kind of state are they in, I may have the most real feelings, they are all serious about handling cases, this is their job, but do they think that they are doing other people's lives? I'm pessimistic about that. In the end, I want to say that Wang Yongqiang finally obtained fairness and justice, but what about Zhang Yongqiang? What about Li Yongqiang? As a criminal defense lawyer, I have many painful memories of the "justifiable defense" defense. With the Kunshan anti-homicide case, the Shandong mother humiliation case and other cases stimulated Article 20 of the Criminal Law to a certain extent, there are signs of resurrection, but after these cases, Article 20 feels like it is going to sleep again, and I hope that through the influence of the film "Article 20", the "legitimate defense" clause of Article 20 of the Criminal Law will be truly activated again. 
Author: Xu Xiaoyun, Senior Partner and Director of Criminal Department of Shaanxi Xu Xiaoping Law Firm.
Xi'an, February 14, 2024.