Seventeen Years is a human tragedy. After viewing a touching scene on television of prisoners meeting with their relatives, Zhang was prompted to visit a number of prisons where he discovered that every inmate has an intricate story. Here, he portrays a woman who is imprisoned for killing her stepsister in the heat of an argument. It is the story of a family, of people overcome by their surroundings, and of human feelings restored to life. Filmed at Tianjin First Prison where the real-life woman was jailed, Seventeen Years is the first film production to have received government permission to show the actual interior of a Chinese prison.