Film

A Touch of Sin

Name: A Touch of Sin
Genre: Crime, Drama
Released: 2013
Cast: Jiang Wu, Wang Baoqiang, Zhao Tao, Li Meng, Zhang Jiayi

Jia Zhangke's masterpiece follows four Chinese strangers whose lives intersect with violence in a country of rapid change and moral decay. Shot with painterly clarity, it moves between rural backwater and glittering city with the formal precision of a morality play. Devastating, angry, unforgettable—for those who can sit with rage and heartbreak.

TMDb rating

3.6

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want anger shown as cold, observational realism, where long unhurried takes across provincial China let resentment build until it spills over, and you can sit with stories that never soften their violence.

Skip it if you need a clear through-line or a hero to follow, since four separate stories with little connective tissue can feel scattered, and its brutality is hard to sit through.

What it asks of you: Expect a long runtime of just over two hours, with patient, deliberate pacing that lets each vignette unfold at its own pace and keeps you watching closely.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Contempt1963

Godard's meditation on art, commerce, and human connection unfolds across a Mediterranean landscape. Like A Touch of Sin, it uses visual beauty to expose spiritual emptiness and the corruption of pure things by money.

But Glacially paced, philosophically abstract, and often deliberately boring in ways that test patience even among patient viewers.

Stalker1979

Tarkovsky's hypnotic journey into a mysterious zone shares Jia's patient, allegorical approach to corruption and desire. Both films make landscape and silence do the work of dialogue.

But Nearly three hours of slow tracking shots and metaphysical monologue. If you need plot momentum, this will feel like drowning in honey.

Come and See1985

Klimov's unflinching portrait of atrocity in WWII matches A Touch of Sin's refusal to look away from human cruelty. Both shatter the idea that cinema can be comfortable and still be truthful.

But Genuinely harrowing. The violence is not cathartic or dramatic—it is real, grinding, and morally corrosive. Not for a light evening.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from A Touch of Sin

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Act of Killing2012

Both refuse the comfort of distance. A Touch of Sin dramatizes everyday violence; The Act of Killing makes us sit with those who commit it. Neither looks away.

Documentary that reconstructs genocide through the perpetrators' own fantasies. It shares A Touch of Sin's unflinching gaze at human capacity for violence and its fascination with how we narrativize brutality. Structurally and morally radical.

But Not narrative fiction—harder to engage with, harder to process. The conceit (asking killers to reenact their crimes) is so disturbing many find it exploitative or unwatchable.

The Second Home

This understated Iranian film shares Jia's interest in how ordinary people navigate systemic corruption and personal dignity. Quiet, observant, deeply political without preaching.

But Minimal plot, deliberately flat affect. The lack of conventional emotional beats can feel cold to viewers used to more obvious storytelling.

Still Walking2008

Hirokazu Koreeda examines how families contain secrets and unhealed wounds. Like A Touch of Sin, it finds moral complexity in the everyday and refuses easy resolution.

But Slow, dialogue-heavy, and emotionally withholding. Nothing gets explained or resolved in the way you might expect.

Memories of Murder2003

Bong Joon-ho's serial killer procedural is formally brilliant and morally serious. Like Jia's film, it uses genre to explore systemic corruption and the individual's helplessness against it.

But Three hours long, and the police brutality and casual cruelty can feel as bruising as the violent crime at its center.

Fish Tank2009

Andrea Arnold's gritty British drama captures the same sense of trapped ambition and casual violence that defines A Touch of Sin. Both watch ordinary people with unflinching compassion.

But Aggressively bleak, shot in a grainy, almost documentary style that some find unwatchable. Difficult music and no musical comfort.

Nocturnal Animals2016

Tom Ford's film uses a nested narrative to explore violence, desire, and the gap between public surfaces and private torment. Visual and architectural precision applied to moral emptiness.

But Occasionally feels more interested in looking beautiful than in earning its darkness. The plotting can seem contrived if you're not in its aesthetic spell.

The Master2012

Paul Thomas Anderson's densely packed drama shares A Touch of Sin's interest in charisma, manipulation, and power. Shot on 65mm, it places beauty and ugliness side by side.

But Aggressively masculine, narratively cryptic, and withholding of the emotional clarity many want. Some find it pretentious rather than profound.

The Third Wife2019

Both use formal beauty to contrast with systemic cruelty. Both interested in how individuals are destroyed by structures too large to fight.

Vietnamese period film about a young girl sold into marriage. Visually sumptuous but morally sparse—a Bresson-like examination of how structures grind down the human. A Touch of Sin in costume, in another country's corruption.

But No dialogue to anchor you, paced like watching paint dry, and the exploitation it depicts is patient and systemic rather than explosive. Easy to find boring rather than devastating.

The Banshees of Inisherin2022

Both understand that violence is not always political or grand—sometimes it's just what happens when two people can't understand each other. A Touch of Sin on a micro scale.

McDonagh's two-hander about friendship ending on an Irish island—smaller in scope than A Touch of Sin but equally obsessed with how ordinary people enact violence on each other. Dark, funny, morally serious. A proof that this register works at any scale.

But Blends dark comedy with genuine cruelty in ways that some find tonally confused. If you want to feel devastated, the jokes can feel cheap. If you want to laugh, the violence lands hard.