Tian zhu ding

One additional star for the topic that few has tried to film.

In about ten or twenty years, these 120 minutes of social depicting will be one of the very rare and precious visual stories for people to understand and entertain what is going on in the first ten years of the 21st century China. It offers a prospective with some interesting details that makes sense to the westerners or maybe its fellow countrymen in the future. But it doesn't really add up for the people living in China nowadays, or at least, the details are not enough.

Stories are too short that they can barely touch the real psychology that the Chinese laborers are having today. I'm not sure whether it is something that the director fails to do or he is not allowed to do. For example, there are lots of complexities existing between a complaining Shanxi miner and a mad murderer. Throughout the first story, the only real attempt Dahai, who has learned the laws and has close relatives living in the city, has made to disclose the corruption is a mail letter without a specific address. This is far away from the countless efforts that a Chinese miner would make before he explode himself with the illegal riches. To me, the efforts, the struggles, and the final desperate in Dahai's mind are the most interesting parts of the story. However, nothing really happens in the movie. The result is that, Dahai seems more like a legendary cowboy coming from a classic American western movie than a struggling Chinese worker who has relatives to care about.

It touches the social issues we are all witnessing in China today, it is entertaining and somewhat heroic, but it fails to restore the story into reality, let alone into a provoking level.

Beautiful movie about living at the bottom of the economic class may lead to random violent acts of aggression - as your only way of releasing the anger inside - , it was close but didn't quite make it ..

Story could have been told more visually , with less but useful dialogue , as the cinematography and beauty within the scenes are amazing . But like most art-houses the story doesn't fully add up . -----------------------------------------------------

Part 1: A man living in a village getting drained by the coal mine industry reaches his ultimate limit - and takes out everyone involved in the corporate scandal 8/10

Part 2: A motorcyclist with an excitement to gun violence ; sibling in an aging family, he "robs" people as his way of making a living 5/10

Part 3: A woman is having an affair with a married man but calls it quits for fear it'll ruin her image . Being false accused for being a slut , she makes a drastic decision. 6.5/10

Part 4: A kid gets blamed for injuring a coworker and has to pay his debt through checks for the next 100 days . He calls quits instead and decides to fall in love with a sex worker during his free time . When his life reaches a dead end he decides to end it there . 7.5/10

Overall 7/10 6/10 Script 9/10 Level of Violence 11/10 Violence Shock Value (Realism of Violence) 100/10 Beauty of the Cinematography

after finally watching A Touch Of Sin this evening at ACMI with some friends, it's left me stuck in 2 worlds - missing Jia Zhang-Ke's meditative & lyrical work of the past & liking the new approach to these social wrongs in a more brutal / violent / cynical manner...

first thoughts were quite similar to when i watched another master film maker Kim Ki-Duk's "Pieta" which after further digestion, thought & reading became my fave film of 2013 - both films show violence in a heavy way but still portray it in a meditative & profound manner, using symbolic moments to remind the audience about these issues...

in hindsight i really like this film and where Jia is going with his approach... considering this is a narrative driven film over his powerful and thought provoking documentaries, all the killings were based on real events the director read in blogs... the film is a vessel to show these separate events as one about alienation, the varying classes in china & corruption / political flaws...

here's a good article from Slant which covers a lot of how i feel towards the films - 8/10

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/a-touch-of-sin

This film exposes the difficulties of a few characters in various Chinese provinces - people of average circumstances just trying to get by. Their stories are based on true events.

This film is suitably shocking in many ways in exposing not only the difficulties of the characters in focus but also the extreme reactions some of them have in dealing with their circumstances. The most creepy aspect is the absence of any authorities or help given to those who need it. This was intended by director Jia Zhang-Ke to expose modern life in China.

While there are powerful scenes in this movie, it seemed confusing at times and not fully coherent and a bit long at over two hours. But credit can be given to the boldness of exposing so much in a totalitarian regime. - dbamateurcritic

The director has so much to express, which makes the film loose. He wants to show the whole picture of modern China by referencing lots of news in the stories. But it weakens the story itself. The fourth fragment is most representative. It seems not so reasonable.

A few actors are great, like Wu and Tao, while others do not their roles. Baoqiang is not ferocious enough as a professional robber. Some guest actors are unnecessary, even ruin this movie, such as Sanming.

Anyway, we should show respects to both Zhangke and this movie. He really wants to express his anxiety about this sick society. He reminds us this situation is unstable and unsustainable. We are on the edge of a crash.