i want to see this. it was in sight n sounds best of 2013 list. i did really like unknown pleasures, but thought that the second half, or third act or thereabouts, lost some of the realism and interesting stuff about the interaction between the characters and ended up with a few too many typically arthouse shots, things like the bike not starting up the hill, then having to stop on the motorway, i do like long unbroken shots and all the rest of it, but it seemed to almost be too easy after the momentum of everything that came before that, like a lapse into a romance of fallibility/the everyday, compared with the realism/reportage of the rest of the film. did love the ending though.
― StillAdvance, Saturday, 8 March 2014 09:23 (ten years ago) link
I am going to watch this again tonight because it's characters have been haunting my thoughts all week.
― xelab, Friday, 14 March 2014 22:36 (ten years ago) link
Which characters haunt your thought the most?
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/03/14/jia-zhangke-explains-why-censors-are-scared-of-his-award-winning-film/?mod=WSJBlog
― 龜, Saturday, 15 March 2014 10:39 (ten years ago) link
The kid who works in factories probably, saying that there isn't a weaker part of the anthology.
― xelab, Saturday, 15 March 2014 11:00 (ten years ago) link
Which Haunting Touch of Sin Character Are You?
― socki (s1ocki), Saturday, 15 March 2014 16:46 (ten years ago) link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Yujiao_incident
― 龜, Tuesday, 18 March 2014 07:04 (ten years ago) link
I like the way Jia has inverted the hollywood trait of female depictions always being younger than the real characters.
― xelab, Tuesday, 18 March 2014 08:21 (ten years ago) link
in his casting? that's his lover/muse so I don't think the casting decision was deliberately provocative or anything, also why in hell would he be responding to Hollywood conventions in particular?
― espring (amateurist), Tuesday, 18 March 2014 09:51 (ten years ago) link
i assume you mean zhao tao.
the way he casts her in everything has given me pause, there's that scene in "i wish i knew" where she's wandering in the rain in shanghai and the camera lingers over the wet t-shirt clinging to her body and it's like ENOUGH, JIA ZHANGKE! ENOUGH! the scene felt so out of place (like other stuff in that film) that it exacerbated the sense of total indulgence.
― espring (amateurist), Tuesday, 18 March 2014 09:53 (ten years ago) link
he's an interesting filmmaker to say the least but i do think he peaked with platform, at least so far. something a bit glib about his recent fiction/doc hybrids that doesn't sit right w/ me. that includes still life/dong, useless, i wish i knew, 24 city.... i'd say the most interesting filmmaker working in china was Jiang Wen but his last film was a disappointment... stylistically bold and narratively intriguing but also kind of incoherent, and too many action films that played the same.
― espring (amateurist), Tuesday, 18 March 2014 09:55 (ten years ago) link
action SCENES
― espring (amateurist), Tuesday, 18 March 2014 09:56 (ten years ago) link
Let The Bullets Fly? Yeah that was trash
― 龜, Tuesday, 18 March 2014 10:32 (ten years ago) link
Lol didn't realise she was his lover, I preferred it when I thought it was a casting decision. I am watching 24 City this week on the strength of how much I loved AToS and suppose am trying project extra auteur points on Jia to an extent.
― xelab, Tuesday, 18 March 2014 13:30 (ten years ago) link
i didnt know she was his lovermuse
― socki (s1ocki), Tuesday, 18 March 2014 14:31 (ten years ago) link
too bad prince won't let that one out of the vault
― espring (amateurist), Wednesday, 19 March 2014 17:14 (ten years ago) link
― 龜, Tuesday, March 18, 2014 5:32 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
I wouldn't say "trash" but it didn't add up to much
― espring (amateurist), Wednesday, 19 March 2014 17:15 (ten years ago) link
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/03/18/taiwan-is-afraid-that-chinese-movies-are-becoming-too-good/
― dylannn, Tuesday, 25 March 2014 21:19 (ten years ago) link
that's a weird headline for an article that's mostly about trade protections etc.
btw european cinemas worried about this re. american films in silent/early sound eras. well, european film producers did. the distributors were happy to cash in on distributing/exhibiting american movies. actually one reason france's film industry was fairly dysfunctional in those days was this split in priorities between producers and distributors/exhibitors. similarly i'm sure that the folks who own taiwan's cinemas would love to have popular chinese films to show (I don't really count jia's films in that group though).
― espring (amateurist), Tuesday, 25 March 2014 21:26 (ten years ago) link
finally released on DVD in a couple weeks
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 25 March 2014 21:32 (ten years ago) link
and blu-ray I hope?
― espring (amateurist), Tuesday, 25 March 2014 21:35 (ten years ago) link
My write-up, from PIX: http://centrifugue.blogspot.com/2014/04/cphpix-day-5-touch-of-sin-bastards-real.html
Liked it. But I knew I would. Loved how many stories was put into it, on the margins of the four main tales.
― Frederik B, Tuesday, 8 April 2014 11:29 (ten years ago) link
Godo review, Frederik.
This was as a whole terrific but the conventional moments -- the lovers discussing their future over tea; the effete boy and his prostitute girlfriend -- were a drag. The horse-beating scenes were among the more wrenching I've seen in years.
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 9 April 2014 00:18 (ten years ago) link
"the effete boy and his prostitute girlfriend"
That part of the story is absolute fire.
― xelab, Wednesday, 9 April 2014 00:23 (ten years ago) link
The brothel scenes and Party chic worked.
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 9 April 2014 00:33 (ten years ago) link
for anyone in/near DC, this is showing at the Freer Gallery in a couple of weeks, with Jia and Zhao Tao in attendance:
https://www.asia.si.edu/events/films.asp?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26eventid%3D109070385
― Aglet, Wednesday, 9 April 2014 21:31 (ten years ago) link
On netflix instant
― Insane Prince of False Binaries (Gukbe), Wednesday, 9 April 2014 22:35 (ten years ago) link
― Aglet, Wednesday, April 9, 2014 4:31 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Insane Prince of False Binaries (Gukbe), Wednesday, April 9, 2014 5:35 PM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
film culture in a nutshell, folks.
― espring (amateurist), Wednesday, 9 April 2014 23:11 (ten years ago) link
lol yeah.
in my defense i've written that date down and i'm gonna request that day off work to go.
― Insane Prince of False Binaries (Gukbe), Thursday, 10 April 2014 00:01 (ten years ago) link
oh, i didn't mean it in a bad way.
― espring (amateurist), Thursday, 10 April 2014 01:33 (ten years ago) link
got tix for a screening of this next week, woohoo
― Stim McRaw (Noodle Vague), Friday, 14 November 2014 17:23 (nine years ago) link
That is sweet and sick
― 龜, Friday, 14 November 2014 17:27 (nine years ago) link
dunno what the venue will be like, it's a new-ish cafe-bar-performance space and i'm told it's pretty compact but a chance to watch this on a decent-sized screen is v. welcome, Hull's not been great for foreign language movies the last few years
― Stim McRaw (Noodle Vague), Friday, 14 November 2014 17:29 (nine years ago) link
This is definitely a big screen movie. God it is so shit Wessie side for these type of films, you have to travel to Manchester, Bradford or Leeds for foreign language movies. It is always too much train + bus action for my liking or finance.
― xelab, Friday, 14 November 2014 23:06 (nine years ago) link
I saw Platform at the end of the Chinese film fest - it was interestingly told, how Jia meshed both the personal lives of members of the company and the gradual shift of their repertoire. Change and more change. I was v tired that afternoon so didn't take it all in but I'd want to see it again anyway.
Fantastic thread, didn't know there was one for Touch of Sin, still one of the better films of the year.
I would say its still worth a watch on a DVD. You won't get be able to take in its look however it has a lot else to it.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 15 November 2014 10:11 (nine years ago) link
Touch of Sin was perhaps my number 1 film last year, would still go in a top 5 of the decade easily. Perhaps my favorite Jia.
― Van Horn Street, Saturday, 15 November 2014 16:39 (nine years ago) link
South Florida didn't get it until February so it's going in my best list.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 15 November 2014 16:42 (nine years ago) link
Very great film, but after watching The World I might prefer that one. Have the earlier trilogy on dvd on top of my tv-set.
― Frederik B, Saturday, 15 November 2014 16:55 (nine years ago) link
i really liked this
think the surround sound in the "cinema" may've been fucked? unless there's deliberate fuckery with the level of the dialogue in the Dahai section?
first thoughts have already been spoken upthread i think but i love how the film is structured as an accumulation of its parts, gaining a lot from their interrelations. and the final sequence was v. affecting.
also so much intertexuality happening
― maybes bakin' maybes (Noodle Vague), Friday, 21 November 2014 00:54 (nine years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfF7ZmKMUX0
This is kinda really bad haha
― 龜, Wednesday, 28 January 2015 13:10 (nine years ago) link
Good film.
I assume the duck killing was totally real but it looked relatively quick (I hope), but was the horse really being hit that badly?
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Monday, 16 March 2015 23:10 (nine years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/iaD6uBa.jpg
― 龜, Monday, 27 April 2015 12:05 (nine years ago) link
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-33059234
― 龜, Wednesday, 10 June 2015 11:00 (eight years ago) link
new one is a change of pace, more like Stella Dallas meets Giant, except with GoogleTranslate instead of oil
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 29 September 2015 03:07 (eight years ago) link
mountains may depart is fantastic
― 龜, Wednesday, 30 September 2015 04:56 (eight years ago) link
ooo
― crime breeze (schlump), Wednesday, 30 September 2015 05:07 (eight years ago) link
watched Xiao Wu tonight, it was v. good
― bonobo voyage (Noodle Vague), Monday, 12 October 2015 20:06 (eight years ago) link
http://shanghaiist.com/2016/01/15/orange_truck_overturns.php
http://i.imgur.com/kFdnuz0.jpg
― 龜, Tuesday, 19 January 2016 21:41 (eight years ago) link
watching MMD tomorrow
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 5 March 2016 21:26 (eight years ago) link
I quite liked it, but not as much as A Touch of Sin
― calzino, Saturday, 5 March 2016 21:39 (eight years ago) link
Lovely until the last chapter, in which Jia falters with the use of English.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 7 March 2016 19:41 (eight years ago) link