Film Review: Dark, Daring Storytelling of ‘A Touch of Sin’

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A woman who works at a massage parlor/sauna is beaten with money by a man who demands she service him as a prostitute. A coal miner goes through life stunned that the villagers around him pay honor to a man who has given nothing back to them. A young worker is injured on the job and given nothing in compensation because he happened to be making “small talk” at the time. An aimless young man alleviates boredom with gunfire. China is changing in Jia Zhangke’s quartet of short stories that comprise “A Touch of Sin,” playing for the next week at Music Box here in Chicago and truly worth an effort to get to Southport to see it.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

The Chinese director of “Still Life” and “The World” delivers a captivating piece about the undercurrent of violence facing a China that’s seen an increasing gap between the haves and have-nots largely due to the influence of capitalism. It’s a film that I marvel even got made given China’s notorious cracking down on films critical of their culture and power structure. In that sense, it feels like not only a remarkably well made piece of work but an important one as well. On top of that, it’s entertaining even as it presents a dark, violent world (that tonal balance has drawn comparisons to Tarantino that seem apt).

Read Brian Tallerico’s full review of “A Touch of Sin” in our reviews section.

All four of the stories of “A Touch of Sin” were reportedly pulled from actual Chinese headlines, giving the entire thing even more gravity. Some of “Sin” feels a bit too studious – there are long shots of people travelling – and some of the visual symbolism can be a bit too underlined (the horse who clearly can’t go anywhere being whipped to near-death MIGHT be a commentary on the coal miners being treated the same) but this is still a fascinating piece of work that stands out in the recent wave of Oscar bait and holiday season blockbusters.

Jia opens with a scene of violence right out of a Sergio Leone Western. A man rides up on a motorcycle and is beset upon on an open road by three thugs looking for a made-up toll. He pulls out a gun and shoots the trio. As he will several times throughout the film, Jia even sets up a pretense that violence won’t greet every character in the scene by allowing one to almost get away. People almost get away in the world of “A Touch of Sin” but not quite.

Continue reading for Brian Tallerico’s full “A Touch of Sin” review.

A Touch of Sin
Photo credit: Kino Lorber