On May 20, the State Cinema Administration of China said it was conducting an investigation and review of the controversial movie "The Mother from Prison" recently.
According to public information, the film is scheduled to be released in theaters on May 30. However, on May 18, there was information that the film's schedule had been canceled due to the wave of high criticism.
The film claims to be adapted from the real experience of the main actress Trieu Tieu Hoang, telling the story of a woman who accidentally kills her husband and goes to jail for resisting domestic violence. After 10 years of serving her sentence, she gets out of prison, rises up independently, receives forgiveness from her mother-in-law and mends her relationship with her son.
In September 2025, the film premiered at the 73rd San Sebastián International Film Festival, helping Trieu Tieu Hoang win the "Silver shell" award for Best Leading Actress.
The fact that an unknown face became an international "actress" was once the pride of Chinese cinema. But recently, many viewers have discovered that the film has signs of violations and fraud in the filming process as well as promotion.
In fact, the official sentence for Trieu Tieu Hoang does not prove that she was abused in her family for many years, leading to manslaughter of her husband as the film crew introduced.
According to the criminal decision of the Intermediate People's Court of Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province (China), Trieu Tieu Hoang had an argument with her husband, Truong Bot, in 2009 because of trivial family matters.
After that, she actively used a fruit knife to stab her husband hard in the chest, causing the aorta to rupture and lead to death. The court sentenced Zhao Xiaohuang to 15 years in prison and stripped her of political power for 5 years.
Audiences believe that the film crew has distorted the court's ruling, causing public misunderstanding.
What is even more unreasonable lies in the actor's status. During filming in 2019, Trieu Tieu Hoang was still serving a prison sentence (actual execution time until June 2020), and was also deprived of citizenship until 2023.
According to Chinese law, people who are deprived of citizenship are not qualified to participate in acting in film and television works.
In addition, to be licensed to enter prison for interviews and filming, the director took the name of filming "education and reform documentary in prison", but in fact secretly filmed a commercial feature film.
This act is considered a serious violation of the provisions of the "Prison Law" that "activities in prisons are not allowed to be used for profitable commercial purposes".
Not to mention, "Mother from Prison" started filming in 2019 but only registered in 2021, violating the mandatory pre-inspection procedure according to China's "Law on Promoting the Film Industry".
Also on May 20, producer Wang Ham posted an apology, admitting that he signed to participate in the project because he "did not investigate and find out fully", and announced that he had terminated cooperation with the film crew and requested to remove his name from the work.
A day earlier, Trieu Tieu Hoang's social media account displayed a message: "Due to violations of the law or Weibo community conventions, this account is prohibited from following".
Trieu Tieu Hoang's personal page on the short video platform also displayed a notification: "This user is prohibited from posting content".
