A Touch of Sin

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Scott R @ScottR Dec 27 NYT 1000 films. This one was tedious. It was interesting to show the Chinese struggles to adapt to the current economics there, but painted a bleak picture. I understand why it wouldn’t have been approved by censors. RUS See more Dark D @RT65718715 06/02/2025 Heavy-handed topics but fast-paced and entertaining. Revenge rarely looks and feels this good. The CGI is 10 years old and looks it. (Look out for the snake!) See more isla s @RT89656869 09/04/2022 This is a bleak film - a film that may be thought provoking, its relatively long and perhaps a bit drawn out but its not a bad film, just a somewhat sobering film. It isn't constantly full of bloody violence but there is a fair bit of it, so I wouldn't recommend it to the especially squeamish. I thought it was interesting to see a female character as one of the lead characters, after revenge. There is some good camerawork and its a decent enough film but it's not really a film I'd want to watch again and I'm not sure I'd actively recommend it as such, apart from perhaps fans of Chinese/world cinema films that know what its about. See more William L @RT77267842 02/20/2022 Dang, when this film uses CGI, you NOTICE it. For a film that is based at the human level and intends to promote slow, intimate character growth to justify an eventual act of violence from each of its four main subjects, you'd think a bit more of the budget would have been earmarked for making those few moments that rely on visual effects a bit more convincing. A Touch of Sin takes on China in a period of social change that it has yet to emerge from, where a penchant for tradition meets an ambitious emergence on the world stage and a trend towards commercialization, with ordinary people caught in the middle. Base human needs are contrasted against the demands of economic forces and entrenched systems of power (there's a reason that Jia Zhangke's films don't get a lot of promotion in China itself; the criticisms of the environment fostered by the state are real and often blunt). The unifying thread of the four stories is an inevitable resort to violence, either against oneself or others - seemingly the only option to actually have some influence in the world, the individual equivalent of dropping the nuke. If the individual stories didn't have such a strong real-world basis, it would be easy to argue that the screenplay reaches for obvious, somewhat exploitative stories, but given the nonfiction source material there is certainly some authentic commentary on modern Chinese social conditions that can be taken from the total product. (3.5/5) See more connor s @RT75483676 10/18/2020 An interesting exploration of economic struggles during China's economic explosion, with each individual story culminating in violence of one type of another. Each narrative arc and cast feels slightly underdeveloped, but it's to be expected in a film composed of what are effectively short stories. See more 09/25/2019 A Touch of Sin a 2013 Chinese drama film directed by Jia Zhangke. While I was generally interested and enjoyed most of the stories here, there were other parts that fell flat for me. And definitely a few scenes which were quite violent. 1001 See more Read all reviews

A Touch of Sin

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