A Touch of Sin

Dir: Jia Zhangke

2013

****

Jia Zhange’s astonishing film A Touch of Sin is a bold look at modern life in China that mixes true events of recent years with the history of wuxia stories and some ancient folk law. Classically, folk law is believed to be based on truth – real events that have been embellished in time but still retain a lesson of sorts. Zhange attempts the same sort of thing but uses real life stories from recent history that have been recorded and documented. The first two of the four stories are connected by characters passing each other by and goes along through the film in the same vein. The Chinese title of the film is Heavenly Fate or Fated Doom, while the English title wryly references the 1971 classic A Touch of Zen, one of the most famous wuxia films of all time. The first story is based on Hu Wenhai, a politically conscious man who snapped one day and killed the all of the authoritative people in his life. The second story is based on Zhou who was suspected of murder and robbery and connected to the deaths of nine people. He was classed as an A-Level wanted criminal and was shot dead by police on 14th August 2012 after a lengthy manhunt. While the character in the film isn’t quite the same as Zhou, there is a strong resemblance to his story. The third story is based on the Deng Yujiao incident that occurred in May 2009. Deng Yujiao was a pedicure worker working in a popular hotel in Badong County. On the 10th May 2009 she rebuffed the physical advances of a guest who had come to the hotel for sex and ended up stabbing him to death trying to fight him off. She was offered very little sympathy by the Badong County police who charged her with murder without bail. The case came to national prominence through social media and internet forums were netizens were enraged by her treatment. The case resonated with the public anger over the corruption and immorality of officials, and garnered over four million forum posts across the country. Chinese authorities attempted to downplay the incident by limiting its presence on Chinese web portals, and a  large number of discussion threads were censored. Following groundswell of public protests and online petitions, prosecutors dropped murder charges, granted her bail, and charged her with a lesser offense of "intentional assault". She was found guilty but did not receive a sentence due to her mental state. The two surviving officials involved in the incident were sacked, also ostensibly in response to public pressure. The last story deals with the more famous story that unlike the other stories was reported in the west. The Foxconn Suicides became famous over time after a spate of suicides by jumping from buildings occurred at the Foxconn City industrial park in Shenzhen. Within 2010, there were 18 attempted suicides by Foxconn employees resulting in 14 deaths in the same year. The series of suicides drew media attention, and employment practices at Foxconn—one of the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturers—were investigated by several of its customers, including Apple and Hewlett-Packard. Jia Zhangke is known for his realist and somewhat surrealist looks at Chinese life but his past films have been gentler than this and certainly more beautiful. There is beauty within A Touch of Sin but it is brutal and unforgiving. I’m not sure the four stories merge together particularly well, indeed they could have been made as four separate features but then I think the message would have been a bit too full on. The message is unlike Zhangke in that his films are generally rather quiet, here it seems his frustrations and anger have come at once, making it his most striking film yet. It is probably unwise of him to comment, so we can only guess at the film’s true message but what I got was brave honesty about the state of society in a country that jumped from Communism to Capitalism in quick succession, how this has changed life and also how hardships remain the same. It is of no surprise the Chinese authorities have not released it and have refused interviews, to report or comment on the film. Brave and brutal, depressingly sad and not exactly entertainment in the classic sense but vitally important and a fascinating experience.