Popular thriller prompts judge to share insights, experience

A court in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, has said that it is planning to help the public better understand the law through hit films and television dramas.

The plan was drawn up after the Longhua District People's Court saw that a legal article it had published about Lost in the Stars, one of the highest-grossing movie blockbusters, had received many online views and likes from readers.

"At the beginning, I simply recounted the details of a domestic lawsuit in my article, but after talking to younger colleagues and learning about the film, I made some revisions, because the plot fit the case I wanted to introduce to the public," said Zhao Manqi, a judge at the Shenzhen Family Trial Center Involving Hong Kong-Macao-Taiwan and Foreign Factors.

The center was established on July 6 last year as a division of the court responsible for dealing with first-instance cross-border family disputes, including those related to divorce, child custody, inheritance and property allocation.

The lawsuit Zhao mentioned in the article was between a couple. The husband, surnamed Chen, wanted a divorce, but was unable to locate his wife.

The couple married in 2001, and then went to Suriname to open a restaurant. A few years later, the restaurant closed due to a lack of business, and the pair began to quarrel frequently.