Out of Mao’s Shadow

Pan presents moving portraits of several victims of China’s corruption-tainted economic growth. He selects his vignettes from a broad array of contemporary Chinese settings, from the well-connected real estate tycoon who ordered the eviction of hundreds of Beijing residents in the run-up to the 2008 Olympics, to the unscrupulous township officials in East China who forced local women to undergo late-term abortions so they could meet their birth-control quotas. He also draws attention to the few brave souls – mostly journalists and lawyers – who at great personal risk to their careers, and occasionally to their lives, dared to unmask egregious wrongdoing by local officials and their underlings.