The Chinese Communist Party’s documentary “Total Trust,” which reveals how the CCP monitors the Chinese people, premiered in Taiwan today. Director Zhang Jialing showcased how the CCP blatantly surveils the entire population and persecutes dissidents.
Over the past two decades, the CCP has continuously utilized smart technology to build a world under big data, with the era of pandemics further fueling this development. From setting up hundreds of millions of surveillance cameras in the Sky Net system, to promoting community grid systems across the country, and actively implementing the social credit system, gradually strengthening a stable social environment. In “Total Trust,” director Zhang Jialing narrates the stories of Chen Zijuan and several other Chinese dissenters who have faced surveillance and harassment by the CCP’s national security apparatus.
The teaser for “Total Trust”:
Click here to watch the teaser
In the teaser, we witness not only digital surveillance of the entire population through smartphones, facial recognition in transportation and communities, but also police spreading rumors to discredit and suppress dissidents, making the storyline tense and thrilling. The film closely follows three human rights disputes, capturing the lives of human rights lawyers, their families, and independent journalists, shedding light on the lesser-known details of CCP’s surveillance in the high-tech era.
In terms of movie ratings, the American Internet Movie Database (IMDb) and review website “Rotten Tomatoes” are some of the references for evaluating a film’s quality. IMDb has a maximum score of ten, and as of today, “Total Trust” has received a rating of 7.2 from IMDb audiences and a 100% fresh rating from Rotten Tomatoes critics.
The overall review from Rotten Tomatoes states, “Total Trust is an eye-opening and deeply unsettling documentary that delves into surveillance technology, abuse of power, and censorship. It tells disturbing stories of Chinese people enduring surveillance, intimidation, and even torture at the hands of the CCP, sparking a global debate on the dangers posed by big data and artificial intelligence (AI) to personal freedoms.”
The summary also mentions, “Total Trust depicts a society where privacy is nearly nonexistent, while also warning democracies experimenting with unprecedented security strategies. The film serves as a wake-up call to countries worldwide increasingly resorting to surveillance tools. If this is the present with CCP surveillance, what will our future look like?”
The film made a significant impact at international film festivals, receiving accolades and winning the “Grand Jury Prize” at the New York Documentary Film Festival’s International Competition section.
The theaters screening the film in Taiwan include Taipei’s Changchun Ambassador Theater, Ximending Eslite Theater South Gangkou Store, Taoyuan’s SBC Xingqiao International Theater, Taichung’s In89 Deluxe Theater, Kaohsiung’s Eslite Theater Zuoying Main Library Branch, In89 Pier-2 Cinema, and MLD Taoyuan Aluminum Theater.
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