Though I Am Gone

On August 5, 1966, Bian Zhongyun, a 50-year-old vice principal of the Girls High School affiliated with Beijing Normal University, was beaten to death. The murder was by some of her students, a group of female Red Guards from the school. Bian was the first educator to be killed in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution. The night Bian was killed, Deng Xiaoping's two daughters, Deng Nan and Deng Rong, found Bian's husband and told him that they could only say that Bian died of high blood pressure due to illness, but not that Bian was killed. In the end, no one was criminally prosecuted.

The documentary revolves around interviews conducted with Bian’s husband, Wang Jingyao. Wang had documented the body of Bian in the aftermath of her death with a camera, and preserved her belongings. In this documentary, Wang shows these items to Hu Jie, and discusses with him the events leading up to Bian’s death. At the end of the documentary, Hu Jie displays the names of 201 teachers who were killed in Beijing in August 1966. This film portrays the trauma of those affected personally by the Cultural Revolution, and serves as a reminder of the scale of deaths and tragedy during the most violent periods of the Cultural Revolution.

This film is widely regarded as one of Hu Jie's most famous for its portrayal of Bian's husband, Wang Jingyao, and his efforts to document his wife's murder.