“Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows.” FROM THE WRITER: It is a frightening thought that man has a shadow side to him, consisting not just of little weaknesses and foibles, but of a positively demonic dynamism. Afraid to acknowledge this, it is easy for a man to turn a blind eye to the shadow-side of human nature. But now and again, a certain man is compelled by his conscience to meet the shadows. Such a man discovers that what is wrong in the world is also in him. If he learns to deal with his own shadow, he has done something real for the world. He has succeeded in shouldering at least a small part of the gigantic, unsolved social problems of our day. -- Zhu Shenghao dared to see the shadows. “Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.” SYNOPSIS: HOW I BECAME A SHADOW is a feature length film set in war torn China in the early to mid 1900’s. It follows the lives of the iconoclastic Chinese poet, ZHU SHENGHAO, and his brilliant, headstrong lover, SONG QINGRU. Through their love, and the help of THREE MYSTERIOUS SHADOWS, they endure poverty, obscurity and terrifying violence to accomplish the near-impossible task of translating Shakespeare’s plays into Chinese. “What is your substance, whereof you are made, That millions of strange shadows on you attend?” WHAT HAPPENED: Zhu Shenghao and Song Qingru are on the run from the invading Japanese army. They live in penury on a diet of poems and kisses, mixed with a bit of rice. Overcoming hellish obstacles, they bring the words of the West’s greatest poet to the country where, perhaps, all poetry began; their innately-poetic homeland of China. Shadows past and present haunt and insist as Zhu Shenghao’s magnificent obsession drives him toward the brink of insanity. Terrifying revelations unfold in a time of shadows and lies. Through it all, Shenghao clings to Qingru and the unalterable promises of love’s truth. “He has outsoared the shadow of our night; envy and calumny and hate and pain, and that unrest which men miscall delight, can touch him not and torture not again; from the contagion of the world's slow stain, he is secure.” The film is scheduled for release on the Mainland in the fall of 2012, the hundredth anniversary of Zhu Shenghao’s birth.