“A Touch of Sin” (2013)
Film Discussion
In A Touch of Sin, the story was organized by four depressing stories that float into one other. The film also shows how four different stories of people who were driven to violence in the pain of modern existence. Also, the four stories are all based on the real-life events of social violence that happened in China lately. “Violence” is arguably one of the key elements around these four stories. Yet, the violence shown in this film seems to be allowed. The violence introduced in the stories accounts for how the characters in each story are oppressed, leading to the tragedy in the end. I feel like the director somehow justified and heroized the violence in the play by telling people that violence becomes the only weapon for them to fight back after suffering from both physical and mental abuse. Dahai exercised his justice by violence. He used the bullet to represent fairness and justice by killing all the powerful people in the village and those who mocked him. In the case of Xiaoyu, she violently killed the officials by using the fruit knife to defend and protect herself from harm.
In A Touch, the director applies the “fantasy” element to both Dahai and Xiaoyu’s stories. Fantasy hero figures have both appeared in Dahai and Xiaoyu’s characters. Both of them have heroized their actions just because they try to fight back from evil. Dahai can be said to be the embodiment of justice by killing all of the rich to keep his dignity and to help people get rid of the scourge. On the other hand, Xiaoyu seems to become the heroine with knight-errant figures. The way she uses her knife on taking down the officials seems to only appear in the fantasy novel, not the real world. I guess that kind of violent behavior somehow becomes the only way to serve their justice.
Throughout the film, I also noticed that four stories are interspersed with different animal imagery to give the story a deeper meaning. Each story uses different animals to symbolize the characters in each story. In Dahai’s story, the image of a horse being whipped by one man until it collapses really serves as a perfect metaphor for the situation that Dahai is now experiencing. Dahai is treated like an animal. Dahai is the horse, and the powerful people are the men who are whipping the horse. San’er, in the second story, seems to be like the cage of cattle on the truck that has an uncertain future by choosing to live a wandering life outside his hometown. In the story of Xiaoyu, she is like the snake that finally launched a counter-attack after suffering from the unjust. In Xiaohui’s story, when Lian Rong asked about his handle, he answered, “I’m Little Bird.” We somehow get the idea that he wants to live a life without pressure and disappointment. He is the bird that wants to fly; we can see that when he chose to jump from the dorm’s balcony to finally be free. On the other hand, Lian Rong’s situation is just like the handle she called herself, “Fish Seeks Water.” By releasing the fish into the river, the girl is undoubtedly looking for a clean place in her heart where she can have a place to really rest.
Under the change of society, the violence that takes place in China will soon expose many class disparities that directly lead to social injustice, power of the rich, corruption, and social discrimination. As we see through the story from Dahai and Xiaoyu, I found that the oppression from rich and powerful people is often the fuse that causes people to suffer. Dahai and Xiaoyu have similar characteristics in that both of them are tough and bold in a way when they fight back to the people who hurt them. Both of them choose to combat against social corruption and defend their dignity. But, of course, both stories also illustrate that when people are forced to push to their breaking point, they often snap under pressure with fatal results.