"Caught in the Web," on Web Searches in China ONLOOKERS first stared in consternation. Then they began to hurl insults at the attractive young woman refusing to give her seat to the elderly man next to her. Ignoring him, Ye Lanqiu stared out the bus window though near-opaque sunglasses. Then she smartly patted her knee, inviting him to perch on her lap. A couple of days later the episode, caught on film, had gone viral. China's netizens had rallied together to identify and punish her. Yet another online "human flesh search" had set off frenzied action. The episode, from Chen Kaige's latest film, "Caught in the Web," is fiction. For many young viewers in China, the movie, which screened this week at the Toronto International Film Festival, is the closest this eminent director has come to China's contemporary reality. But the film's unmistakable stance against the Web searches puts him in an unusual position: aligned with the government that initially banned his previous films while he also makes a statement about the Cultural Revolution. Mr. Chen, who last month celebrated his 60th birthday, sealed his status as one of the country's most respected filmmakers decades ago with "Farewell My Concubine" and "Yellow Earth," considered classics here. Set in pre-Communist and Cultural Revolution-era China, they are sweeping dramas a world away from the hyperspeed cyberworld Mr. Chen tackles in "Caught in the Web." Before the film's release this summer Mr. Chen's popularity in his native country had begun to wane, especially among young viewers. "Caught in the Web" is something of a comeback, drawing more than six million viewers and generating around $30 million and praise from the state-run newspaper The Global Times. Some compare the country's ubiquitous online searches to the vigilante meetings and punishments of the Cultural Revolution in 1960s China. Having lived through those years himself, Mr. Chen, perhaps unsurprisingly, paints the phenomenon of "human flesh searching," as the online hunts are known here, in such a critical light. The audience is invited to sympathize with Ms. Ye; her behavior on the bus is mitigated by her discovery, just before boarding, that she has lymphatic cancer. "I feel it is my obligation to face the real China and today's society," Mr. Chen said in an interview, adding that he was "making a mirror of Chinese society." And many viewers agree. "I don't really think I have been affected by it, but I did it to someone else before," Wang Le, a Beijing resident, said, adding, "There's a thin line between harming someone in real life and gossiping behind their backs." Human flesh searches, a literal translation from the Chinese phrasing, are a peculiarly Chinese phenomenon. These collective and unofficial investigations harness voluntary Web surfers to track down identities, contact details and personal history. Mr. Chen's film looks at only the negative side of such searches. Often motivated by a sense of social and moral outrage, they have been lauded in some cases for their capacity to expose corruption among local officials when the government does not take action, and national newspapers are prevented by censorship from doing so. In one well-known case in 2010, a drunk 22-year-old student named Li Qiming struck two students while driving through a college campus, killing one. When campus security officers came to detain him, he warned them that his father was the deputy police chief. His words spread like wildfire across the Internet, and many believed that had the incident not been made public by outraged netizens, Mr. Li would have gotten away with a lighter sentence because of his family connections. On Sina Weibo, the Chinese alternative to Twitter, a user going by the name 7aiko wrote, "If the government were financially transparent, flesh searches would not be necessary to find the truth." Web censorship has become an increasingly important issue in China. Foreign news services like Bloomberg and social networks like Facebook have been blocked, and in May, Sina Weibo initiated "user contracts," a point system that punishes users for a broad range of vague offenses, including spreading rumors and calling for protests. Then Beijing's police chief, Fu Zhenghua, announced in July that Web users who attack Communist Party leaders would be "severely punished." Given this context and the government's animosity toward the searching, it is easy to see why a filmmaker who wants his work to get through government censors would criticize such acts. But Mr. Chen opted not to show any positive aspects. Asked about this decision, Mr. Chen said: "It was about raising a real problem. I am not suggesting solution. "My feeling toward the Web sites in China is very mixed," he said. On the one hand, I've seen the positive side. On the other hand, can you abuse the freedom of speech to attack people? Are you going to play a role like a judge? Because that reminds me of the Cultural Revolution. Certainly the ill effects of these investigations are considered by many to be real. "The scale of and motivations behind the attacks bear similarities to the Cultural Revolution," said Vincent Capone, who has been researching human flesh searching at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and maintains a blog on the subject. In both eras they take very simple qualities that people have and magnify these, turning them into traitors. Mr. Chen recalled working against his father in the 1960s. "Although I knew he wasn't bad, I joined the revolutionaries against my father," he said. "When I was making "Caught in the Web" and envisioned Ye Lanqiu watching the computer screen, I also could hear the overwhelming noise from the public" during the revolution. Mr. Chen later wrote a letter of apology to his father, but he worries that Internet bullies will not be held accountable. Despite continuing to draw on his experiences with "Caught in the Web" the new film is a major shift of focus for Mr. Chen, who said he intended to make more movies about present-day China, adding, "I feel that if everyone only goes back to historical pieces, then there is no hope for Chinese cinema."