Jintao Yu 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.

Raven-1969 "It is to the credit of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates," wrote Hawthorne, yet darkness wins many battles in four murderous portraits from contemporary China that actually happened. A bold and elusive thief traveling along the margins of society, a gentle and lonely heart worn down by itinerant and mechanical work, a fervent revolutionary upset with corruption and greed, and a solitary soul who longs for a family and yet is surrounded by lust, all find themselves separated from society and the love and fulfillment they strive for. Each lashes out violently at their constraints. Filled with intriguing allusions, impressive depth, compelling themes and fantastic stories, I loved how this film seamlessly wound its way through modern China as well as the human heart. Winner of the best screenplay at Cannes.

astonkey While cinema should have elements of universal appeal, to appreciate "A Touch of Sin" it's useful to have some sense of Chinese society and history. Many of the elements in A Touch of Sin would resonate well with a Chinese audience, but I'm afraid most Westerners wouldn't catch them. The very fact that dialogue in each scenario is conducted in a very distinctive (mutually unintelligible) local dialect is totally missed by the English subtitles (indeed, in China, the film would need standard Mandarin subtitles!)-- but the issue of dialect and local origins in a 'wanderer's society" like China would have a huge impact on the Chinese viewing audience.Other reviewers mention that when violence occurs, bystanders don't seem to have any reaction -- this can be seen as a direct homage to the great Lu Xun (China's foremost modernist writer of the 1920s) who claimed that his very entry into the world of literature was inspired by a photograph of a public execution in China --where gawking bystanders in the background of the photo had no reaction to the violence happening before them. Similarly, the "assassination at the temple" (first story) can be seen as a direct reference to the famous 1935 assassination of the notorious Shanghai warlord Sun Chuanfang as he was praying in a Buddhist temple (an assassination that was seen as totally righteous and virtuous by the Chinese public at the time). And finally -- the very existence of the Chinese Communist Party, and the entire People's Republic of China -- is due to an ideology that the social injustices caused by capitalism must be solved by violence. (Think Dahai's killing spree, but on a mass scale). If you want to know why the film is not shown in China, think no further than this!!We always analyze Western films within their cultural and historical contexts....to not do so with non-Western films does an injustice to the film and the film-maker.

JvH48 I saw this film at the Ghent (Belgium) film festival 2013, where it was selected as part of the official Competition. Technically there was nothing wrong with it: shot beautifully, and acted splendidly. However, I could derive no underlying theme other than the under-achievers who were the respective main characters in the four loosely connected stories. Was there otherwise something in common, apart from the fact that all four stories ended in unmitigated violence?? The only shooting that was justified, occurred in the beginning of the story where one motor cyclist was threatened by three men armed with axes, but it was just an isolated incident without a preceding story to explain. All other shooters whose history we followed later on, may have considered themselves above the law, justified in killing around for a just cause. But I did not get their ulterior motives, at least not as being strong enough to arrive at what they did.The festival website mentioned "underclass rage" as binding theme, but that is not sufficient for me. The stories in itself are well told and technically flawless, but one keeps wondering all the time what's the point in this bloodshed. It may be considered social commentary, but it lacks constructive ideas or novel insights. On the positive side, we from outside China get a fresh view on life in China as it is nowadays, giving us the chance to see that it does not look much different when looking from the outside. The landscapes and the cities could have been European or American, if we disregard the obvious fact that all the people there look Chinese. But I don't think a guided tour was the ultimate purpose of the film makers.Speaking of Chinese looks: It was a nice touch that we were allowed to recognize the respective main characters throughout "their" story, this usually being rather difficult for us Europeans, having great problems telling Chinese (and Japanese, for that matter) apart; "they all look alike" is a common statement. In this movie we always had a particular distinguishing mark to assist us in following the main character. I'm not sure it was a deliberate setup by the film makers, to facilitate international distribution, but anyway it helped very much.All in all, this film falls short in delivering the obviously intended message that some people cannot stand being ignored or neglected for too long a time, and thus are bound to eventually "explode" in some way. Another thing that also did not work out, was involving me in the main characters, who seemed to me coming from a different planet and acting illogically. On the other hand, we got a nice view on contemporary China, far away from the touristic sightseeing routes, a seldom chance that we otherwise don't get easily. Very well acted and shot as well. All things considered, I scored a 3 (average) for the audience award when leaving the theater. This film ranked 39th for the audience award, score 3.73 out of 5. And the international jury awarded it for "its musical choice and the combination of traditional and contemporary music".ADDENDUM as of December 2013: I saw this movie twice by accident, while it was programmed as part of the Tiger Friends Preview Event prior to the 2014 International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR). Which movie would be screened during this event, was kept secret until the last minute. When it became clear what was about to happen, I did not run away however. It happened to me before that a repeated viewing worked very well to grasp things missed the first time. But alas, in this case it merely amplified my former conclusions. The only change in appreciation was that I liked the first story better than previously. On the other hand, knowing beforehand what was going to happen, the other three stories exposed more inconsistencies than I was aware of the first time. Anyway, the whole experience was not boring, and it still offers a nice view on contemporary China, but that is all there is.