Jia Zhangke’s A Touch of Sin consists of four brutal stories of death: three murders and one suicide. Each story is ripped-from-the-headlines and stems from China’s newfound status as a capitalist superpower. As can be expected from a Sixth Generation Chinese filmmaker, Jia tells most of his stories within the constraints of social realism: four chapters, four regions of China, four working class protagonists, and four examples of class conflict inflicting emotional damage on the less fortunate. But A Touch of Sin also comes to TIFF as a self-described “martial arts” film inspired by King Hu’s A Touch of Zen. 

Anyone expecting a Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon-style epic will surely be confused and disappointed by Jia’s film. Yet, three of the film’s four chapters end with bloody scenes of revenge, though it’s the other not-bloody chapter that packs the most emotion. Jia combines social realism and macabre stylized violence in fascinating ways. I can’t in good conscience refer to A Touch of Sin as a “genre film,” but the brief violent sequences that punctuate each story carry an operatic weight to them, not unlike Hu’s wuxia classic. It’s obvious that Jia is angry about the so-called “New China,” and the intrusion of graphic violence into his social realist aesthetics makes for an appropriately powerful demonstration.

A Touch of Sin will screen publicly at 9:00pm on Wednesday, September 11 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox as well as at 2:30pm on Thursday, September 12 at the Ryerson Theatre.

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Alan Jones writes about film for Toronto Standard. You can follow him on Twitter at @alanjonesxxxv.

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