When a Movie About a 46-Year-Old Murder Shook an Entire Island

What happens when you try to rewrite history while the witnesses are still alive?

Taiwan just found out. A single movie has ignited such fury that actors are threatening to sue their own producers, the film has been indefinitely postponed, and an entire island is asking uncomfortable questions about who gets to control the narrative of their past.

The controversy centers on "Murder of the Century," a film about one of Taiwan's most infamous unsolved cases: the February 28, 1980 massacre of democracy activist Lin Yi-hsiung's family. While Lin was imprisoned and tortured for his role in Taiwan's democracy movement, an assassin entered his home and stabbed his mother 14 times, his 9-year-old daughter 6 times, and his 6-year-old twin girls once each. Only the eldest daughter, Judy, survived.

The Professional Touch of Political Murder

The crime bore all the hallmarks of a state-sponsored assassination. The killer spent 80 minutes in the house, covered each body with a blanket, and placed cash at their feet—a professional assassin's ritual to prevent the victims' ghosts from haunting him. He then made a cryptic phone call asking for "Mr. Wang" before hanging up, widely believed to be a completion signal.

Taiwan's Transitional Justice Commission later concluded that intelligence agencies were likely involved. The question that haunted Taiwan for decades wasn't who did it, but why the authorities allowed it to happen under 24-hour police surveillance.

Rewriting History, Chinese Style

Now, according to leaked scripts, the new film suggests the murderer was actually a prominent democracy activist—not state agents. At a press conference, actress Lee Chien-na declared that if people "re-examine the incident, they may discover it wasn't that serious or horrific." The film would "give a new answer" about the murders, she promised.

The backlash was swift and devastating. Online boycott movements erupted. Actors publicly apologized and threatened lawsuits against producers, claiming they'd been deceived about the film's true nature. The director allegedly lied, saying Lin himself had approved the project—he hadn't. The filmmakers never spoke to Lin or anyone connected to the case.

The film has been shelved indefinitely.

The Money Trail Leads to Beijing

The production company's head, Su Chin-shi, is the retired CEO of Yum China Holdings, which operates over 17,000KFC and Pizza Hut stores in China. This isn't his first foray into historical revisionism—a previous film pushed narratives about a 2004 assassination attempt on former President Chen Shui-bian that aligned with the China-friendly Kuomintang party.

The director, Hsu Kun-hua, studied in Beijing and is the grandson of a secret police spokesman from the era when these murders occurred. After the backlash, he apologized and withdrew from post-production, acknowledging his family identity was "a source of pain for the victims."

Democracy's Immune System

The failed film reveals something profound about Taiwan's democratic resilience. Ranked as Asia's top democracy by the Economist Intelligence Unit, Taiwan's open society makes it a prime target for disinformation. 95% of Taiwanese say they've encountered misinformation, and 94% believe its impact is serious.

Taiwan's National Security Bureau reported an all-time high of 2.3 million pieces of fake news last year and 45,590 fake online accounts. Beijing operates an internet army speaking 20 languages to spread its narrative globally.

Yet this episode shows the limits of such influence operations. When China-backed narratives clash with living memory and democratic values, they can backfire spectacularly.

The Survivor's Grace

Perhaps most remarkably, Judy Lin—the sole survivor who lost her mother, grandmother, and twin sisters—has publicly forgiven her family's killer. After moving to the US with her mother, she found healing through Christianity and music, eventually returning to Taiwan as an award-winning gospel singer.

Judy may forgive, but Taiwan won't forget. The island's democracy was built on sacrifices like her family's, and attempts to rewrite that history strike at the heart of Taiwanese identity.