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Communist Vietnam's secret death penalty conveyor belt: How country trails only China and Iran for 'astonishing' number of executions

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Prisoners are dragged from their cells at 4am without warning to be given a lethal injection Vietnam's use of the death penalty has been thrust into the spotlight after a real estate tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to be executed in one of the biggest corruption cases in the country's history. Truong My Lan, a businesswoman who chaired a sprawling company that developed luxury apartments, hotels, offices and shopping malls, was arrested in 2022.

"The Iron Red Door", freely adapted from Hugo's novel The Last Day of a Condemned Man

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The Iron Red Door is the passage through which the bodies of executed prisoners get out of Thailand's infamous prison “Bang Kwang.”

Every time this door opens one more human being has been killed. It doesn't matter if he was innocent or guilty; it doesn’t matter if he was a poor western immigrant doing art in an Asian metropolis. It only matters that they kill someone.

The Red Iron Door is freely adapted from Victor Hugo's novel The Last Day of a Condemned Man, one of the world's most powerful manifest against the death penalty, and incorporates excerpts from Pier Paolo Pasolini's work. The film is shot in Thailand and is about the death penalty in Asia.

Synopsis

It is the day before the execution of Pietro, an Italian artist accused of murdering Rak, a mysterious Thai woman.

Pietro and his wife Nee, who are trying to survive in Bangkok producing artistic theater plays, met Rak during one of their shows.

Rak discovered the beauty of stage-acting and decided to leave her bright future and family to become an actress. But her happy free life abruptly came to an end. During a performance on a boat, the Thai girl vanished mysteriously.

Pietro, an easy target for the prosecution, is sentenced to death. 

Roland, an Interpol officer vaguely acquainted with Pietro, visits the condemned on death row shortly before his execution. Roland has doubts about Pietro's guilt and decides to spend the last 24 hours with Pietro, to find out the truth. 

The whole story becomes a long poetic narration between the present grayness of the cell and the colorful flashbacks of the past, a long travel through modernity and ancient times, fights for power, fights for freedom, death, theater and the hazards of a fascinating yet dangerous city.

The backdrop is Bangkok, a dazzling city, a city made sick by superficiality and capitalism, a city, full of contradictions, in a climate of civil war.

The Iron Red Door
  • Executive Producer: Ulf Pilblad and Patchanee Poonthong
  • Director: Maurizio Mistretta
  • Cast: Maurizio Mistretta, Ulf Pilblad and Patchanee Poonthong
  • Country of shooting: Thailand
  • Production date: September 2015
  • Intent to release: September 2016
  • Duration: 90 -100 minutes

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