“Life is too short to be ordinary,” budding doctoral student Yingying Zhang wrote in her diary before she studied abroad in the United States at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Sweet, genuine, and with a peculiar passion for studying, Yingying found her new surroundings beautiful and quickly made friends. It’s why when she went missing on June 9, those close to her immediately knew something terrible had happened.
South by Southwest 2020 documentary Finding Yingying is as much about Yingying’s murder case as it is about the way Yingying saw the refined beauty in the world, which makes it a much more personal venture than your average true-crime documentary. The “finding” in the title is much less about solving the case and its details than it is about discovering the beautiful, almost innocent way Yingying tackled her life. Her brightness permeates the film, with her monologuelike diary entries overlaid with bright, green imagery of trees, crops, and mountainous terrains. Chicago-based documentary filmmaker Shi depicts a young woman filled with hope and wonder that, when juxtaposed with her murder, makes her death all the more crushing.
When Yingying’s mother is picked up from the Chicago airport, she’s haunted by signs warning people to not get in cars with strangers. The painful truth is that her trusting daughter hopped into a car with a man she didn’t know who promised her a ride home and brutally killed her. A recent university grad, Brendt Christensen, is quickly arrested for her murder, but the process is grueling and Yingying’s family is forced to wait years for a trial to even begin.
Shi wants one thing for Christensen: the death penalty. When Shi reveals through voiceover this desire, the humble documentary comes a bit more into focus. Yingying’s diary entries make her so alive with ambition, and with that in mind, Shi begs her audience to see that the death penalty is what Christensen deserves. As a director who focuses on social justice and human rights, it’s a bold viewpoint, and one that Yingying’s parents, who live in China, share.
Finding Yingying spends a great deal of time with the Zhang family, and Shi is a fly on the wall to their tearful fights from aching grief. As they wait over a year for Christensen’s trial date, they critique the U.S. criminal justice system, one that is so drastically different from their own. It’s absurd; they don’t understand how someone so painfully guilty can be seen as not guilty until convicted by a jury of peers. The more time that passes, the longer they wait for answers to where Yingying’s body resides so they can bring her soul back home.
A film that is equal parts a celebration of a young woman’s life and a horrible document on her death, Finding Yingying brings humanity to the often stale true-crime subgenre while also giving us a unique perspective from someone on the outside of the American justice system.
Finding YingYing is available now as a virtual cinema release.
This article appears in January 1 • 2021.