A Touch of Sin

This masterwork is set in contemporary China, where the gulf between those able to maneuver (or manipulate) the country's economies of change and those left behind or defeated by the seismic shifts widens.

In two decades of moviemaking, China's Jia Zhangke has examined the damage of his country's explosive growth with a poetic sense of outrage. With his latest effort, the implied violence bubbles over.

Jia is passionate about his characters, but that never compromises his considerable artistic control.

Drawing on four news stories, writer-director Jia Zhangke portrays the plight of workers in the new China. Set in four provinces, A Touch of Sin is humanist critique of the country's turn to capitalism.

Jia offers a stark presentation (no music, few edits) that discourages vicarious thrills; the violence is startling, not cool.

Jia's primary concern here is the solitary suffering of his characters, punished to the point where they can't take anymore.

The wuxia killings elevate A Touch of Sin into the territory of great revenge pictures, even as its ideology proves less than discernible.

Jia is one of those moviemakers who can tell a story in a single shot, and his eloquence is hard at work here ...

A grueling experience. One that feels sadly necessary.

A kind of Chinese Pulp Fiction with a political pulse, it adds up to a powerful portrait of desperate individuals driven to extremes by official corruption and runaway commercial development.

It's a movie that's bitterly violent, both physically and emotionally, and a tremendous exploration of the have-nots in a society that is mostly known for its haves.

It might be my least favorite of (Jia's) movies, but I still count it as one of the best films of 2013 which should tell you what I think of this extraordinary filmmaker.