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Critics Consensus: Its screenplay isn't as graceful as the choreography of its action sequences, but A Touch of Sin offers enough stylishly satisfying violence to muscle past its rough spots.
Critic Consensus: Its screenplay isn't as graceful as the choreography of its action sequences, but A Touch of Sin offers enough stylishly satisfying violence to muscle past its rough spots.
All Critics (78) | Top Critics (23) | Fresh (73) | Rotten (5) | DVD (1)
This masterwork is set in contemporary China, where the gulf between those able to maneuver (or manipulate) the country's economies of change and those left behind or defeated by the seismic shifts widens.
In two decades of moviemaking, China's Jia Zhangke has examined the damage of his country's explosive growth with a poetic sense of outrage. With his latest effort, the implied violence bubbles over.
Jia is passionate about his characters, but that never compromises his considerable artistic control.
Drawing on four news stories, writer-director Jia Zhangke portrays the plight of workers in the new China. Set in four provinces, A Touch of Sin is humanist critique of the country's turn to capitalism.
Jia offers a stark presentation (no music, few edits) that discourages vicarious thrills; the violence is startling, not cool.
Jia's primary concern here is the solitary suffering of his characters, punished to the point where they can't take anymore.
Has a propulsion that may slow down during its two-hour running time, but it never falters.
A Touch of Sin, regardless of its faults, is still a thought-provoking film.
[Director Jia Zhangke] proves himself here a master of pacing.
Although [director Jia Zhangke] makes a great deal in interviews of how the four stories are drawn from reported cases in recent years across the nation... A Touch of Sin plays contrary to a torn-from-the-headlines dramatization.
The wuxia killings elevate A Touch of Sin into the territory of great revenge pictures, even as its ideology proves less than discernible.
Jia is one of those moviemakers who can tell a story in a single shot, and his eloquence is hard at work here ...
A solid film that intertwines four compelling stories loosed based on real events about the senselessness of violence, aggression and brutality, as well as people's obsession with it - which, as the film suggests, makes us not so different from animals, only perhaps worse.
Super Reviewer
This films is certainly going to be more of an acquired taste than a lot of films, but I thought it was a damn good film about 4 vastly different people from different provinces driven to pretty violent acts. The film's violence is far more shocking since each character's story, prior to its climax, is quiet and naturalistic. So, in turn, I believe that makes the eventual violent climax that much more powerful and impacting. Because of that, I believe people who don't like it will point to the film's quiet parts and deliberate pace as part of its negatives. Not that I can blame them, as I don't think the story, which has plenty of social commentary about corruption and the effects of globalization on people of lower-to-middle class. I also think the quieter and deliberate pace helps paint a poetic picture of contemporary China, it all feels real. Granted, the film is inspired by true events, but Zhang Ke Jia's way of directing and writing helps add a little bit of realism to each character instead of it feeling like an exaggerated version of someone real. The violence itself is pretty graphic, particularly for someone like Ke Jia, whose known for his quiet and surreal views of contemporary China. But it doesn't feel gratuitous, it just feels like it's a natural culmination of each story you watch. These are people, at least 3 of them, that are pushed to their absolute limits before they finally decide to push back against those who, they feel, is wronging them. Again, it's certainly not a film that's gonna connect with everyone, some parts of the film didn't really click with me entirely to be honest, but I still found it a quietly compelling film.
'A Touch of Sin'. A cold, unnerving social critique across classes in China. The direction sets the tone damn well!
Strong stories overpower the more mediocre ones in telling the tale of those left out of China's booming economy. The reactions are violent and jarring but nonetheless noteworthy
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