Il tocco del peccato

Do not focus on the rate. The film is worth watching even if it could have been much better and some of the details in the scenario are clearly a fail beginning with the lack of coherence of the characters. In clear, it's hard to follow them and to understand them. A Touch of Sin turns out to be a hell of a lot of sins, of violence, of crimes and of desperation. During the film I hesitated between skepticism, bewilders or admiration for this rough and tough portrait of China through different stories that are not necessarily linked together. A touch of sin is about four characters in four different regions in China who are going through hard times, because of globalization, corruption or a closed system. All these things will lead them to crime, suicide and the metaphor of the collapse of the system. It is always better to make a critic out of a movie you have fancied but not all of it is to throw away, and I would recommend to watch that movie for its originality and the ambitious scenario of the director. In short it was a great project and maybe some mistakes could have been avoided, but in the end it's indeed an interesting director to follow in the upcoming years.

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

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.

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

The first minute of this film is better than entire acclaimed English-speaking movies of the year I'm watching it; 2020. But the film is ultimately disappointing.

Every movie director can take nice pictures, but this is a film of not only stunning visuals but stunning visuals time and again imbued with meaning in relation to society and environment.

The film is actually several separate short stories. Short stories can be perfect ideas uncorrupted by the extrapolation necessary for full-length films. But these short films reveal the weakness in lack of depth usually associated with the short film form: the limited time in which, with depth, to tell a tale.

Each of the main characters are victims of their situation, exploited by others in positions of authority in a society built this way. The users are not seen as such by the general mass of the people, who the director shows as dumb animals, most clearly in a scene with a mistreated animal in relation to the scene that it follows.

Though the short films are fleshed-out snapshots, they are snapshots all the same, wasting the promise of meaning imbued in single images. But the great failing is the lack of resolution to each story. A fatuous comeuppance is stuck on almost all as the director takes the easy way out.

These dim-witted "resolutions" are as if these days to end a film this way is more than acceptable, it is acclaimed. It is too easy to simply give up and do a Tarantino. The stories haven't quite lived up to their potential and then are given up on.

Still, despite its flaws, what is good about the film shows a great filmmaker at work.