Foreign Movie Review: A TOUCH OF SIN (2013) AA+

Subtitles, Chinese

Netflix DVD

Don't miss this very special  modern historical movie that describes a very small portion of China today as it is moving from a backward and non-industrialized society to a player on the world stage.  It shows the heartbreak and problem of young and older people entering into that society.  IT'S DEFINITELY NOT A FUN MOVIE.  It's  about the people caught up in this massive change.  This picture shows some of the problems and pitfalls of that change.  Should be watched because of it is magnificent depiction of modern China from just a travelogue and cinematographer standpoint.

From Other Reviewers:   A "brilliant exploration of violence and corruption in contemporary China" (Jon Frosch, The Atlantic), A TOUCH OF SIN was inspired by four shocking (and true) events that forced the world's fastest growing economy into a period of self-examination. Written and directed by master filmmaker Jia Zhangke (The World, Still Life), "one of the best and most important directors in the world" (Richard Brody, The New Yorker), this daring, poetic and grand-scale film focuses on four characters, each living in different provinces, who are driven to violent ends. An angry miner, enraged by widespread corruption in his village, decides to take justice into his own hands. A rootless migrant discovers the infinite possibilities of owning a firearm. A young receptionist, who dates a married man and works at a local sauna, is pushed beyond her limits by an abusive client. And a young factory worker goes from one discouraging job to the next, only to face increasingly degrading circumstances.(

All four of A Touch of Sin’s interwoven stories are lifted from current events. They show  the moment in the lives of average, put-upon Chinese citizens when the pressure builds to a crisis and violence results. As high-level corruption grows in China, so too does violent crime, and Jia was moved to make the film by the heretofore unseen levels of impulse murder, vengeance execution, suicides and assaults of all kinds.