Film Director Comes up with Lousy Script to Excuse Indictment Charges

     You would think that an award-winning professional filmmaker would know how to come up with a credible script.  In Taiwan, film director Chang Tso-Chi (张作骥), who had received the award for best cinematography at the 2010 Golden Horse Film Festival, just couldn't come up with believable lines when he was indicted for allegedly raping a screenwriter.  To make matters worse, the more he spoke in his defense, the deeper he dug a hole with his tongue.

     On the night of May 13, he hosted a dinner at the office of his production company but somehow couldn't remember what he was doing that night.  That was a not-so-clever twist on the overworked excuse that he was too drunk to remember what he was doing.  (The last time we heard the amnesia excuse used that poorly was when George H.W. Bush said he couldn't remember where he was and what he was doing when John F. Kennedy was killed.) 

     Oh, and besides, he’d had a bad back during that particular night and was “almost incapable of having sexual intercourse,” suggesting that he almost couldn't have raped her.  (It’s nice to know that you don’t have to rub alcohol on your back to relieve back pain.  It can also be taken internally.)

     By 2:00 AM, guests were leaving a drunken female scriptwriter with Chang.  When just the two of them remained at the office, the indictment indicates that Chang undertook to use his production company as a reproduction company.  We won’t describe what the indictment said happened over the next few minutes.  Like Alfred Hitchcock, we’ll draw the camera back from the scene of the alleged attack and leave the rest to your imagination.

     Afterwards, the scriptwriter reported the incident to the police, who took her statement and other evidence.  Prosecutors claim that the DNA she provided matched Chang’s.  Since science requires that we keep an open mind, we have to entertain the possibility that two people can have matching DNA. 

     Marcus Tullius Cicero famously wrote, “When you have no defense, abuse your accuser.”  That’s what Chang did, albeit very poorly.   He claimed that the scriptwriter was “out of her mind,” as if a victim’s sanity, or lack of it, had any bearing on his innocence.  Chang didn’t say whether the DNA specialists were also out of their minds.

     Here’s where Chang started digging a deeper hole with his tongue.  To prove that the screenwriter was out of her mind, Chang produced a smart phone containing a video showing that, around 1:00 AM, the woman was crying and pleading with guests not to leave.  In light of what happened after 2:00 AM, it’s hard to see how the video could have helped Chang.

     To make matters worse for Chang’s defense, prosecutors say that the video shows that Chang appeared sober.  Otherwise, prosecutors would have had no evidence as to whether Chang had been as drunk as he had seemed to suggest.  So much for the shopworn defense, “I was drunk and didn't know what I was doing.”

     According to background info provided by a Taipei Times news article, Chang had been an assistant director until 1993, when he started his own production company.  In 2010, he received the Golden Horse Award for Cinematography.  The title of the movie, ironically, was When Love Comes (当爱来的时候).
     Social responsibility requires that we make a public service announcement.  First, to men: When a woman says, "Oh, I'm so-oo drunk," it's not a mating call.  Women: If you have been drinking too much, try to avoid showing it; for crying out loud, avoid making sounds that wolves may interpret as mating calls, and try to have a designated driver for a getaway car.