A
Touch Of Sin (2013/Kino Lorber Blu-ray)
Picture:
B Sound: C+ Extras: D Film: B+
In
a world of sin, it is true... that no good deed goes unpunished.
There are no happily endings, no happily ever afters, there is only
who you can take advantage of. Jia Zhangke's A
Touch of Sin
(2013) follows the story of 4 people who live in such a world. An
angry miner, a wandering drifter, a female receptionist, and young
man who works in a sweat shop.
The
miner is angry at all the hollow promises, bribes and corruption in
his village and how no else is stepping up against the injustice and
decides to take a rifle and the law into his own hands. The drifter
is man with a gun, robbing and killing all whom he deems as parasites
of society... and he enjoys it. The receptionist is a woman who
works in a sauna and having an affair with a married man, but is
treated like a whore and when pushed beyond her limits and she
finally cracks. The story of the young man is who runs away after
causing an accident, hopping from different jobs he learns that is no
easy street and ends up only coming full circle back to the same job
he hated.
This
film shows a world of the fallen, those whom society has forgotten,
who have been cheated or live by cheating others ...a world where the
only way to get ahead in life is to take by force or by unfair means.
It has a very macabre karma, and shows what happens to the human
nature/spirit when there idealism is taken away. No matter how hard
a person try to change it makes no difference... the only thing to do
is join the madness.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image was shot on an Arri
Alexa HD camera with Arriscope and Master Scope lenses looking pretty
good, though one wonders if 35mm might have pulled off an even better
image while the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix is not as
strong or consistent as the image, but still decent enough. There
are no extras.
-
Ricky Chiang
