Set in 1937 during China's communist revolution, the film is based on the real life events of Huang Kegong. Huang was a 26-year-old soldier in the Red Army that murdered a female student, after his marriage proposal was rejected. Huang expected Chairman Mao Zedong to grant him amnesty for the crime, given Huang's service to the Red Army, but Mao refused to pardon the murder. What followed was the first widely-followed public trial in the history of the Communist Party of China.