贾樟柯导演的《天注定》| a touch of sin, directed by jia zhangke

Which Haunting Touch of Sin Character Are You?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Yujiao_incident

I like the way Jia has inverted the hollywood trait of female depictions always being younger than the real characters.

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?

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.

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.

action SCENES

Let The Bullets Fly? Yeah that was trash

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.

i didnt know she was his lovermuse

too bad prince won't let that one out of the vault

Let The Bullets Fly? Yeah that was trash

― 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

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/03/18/taiwan-is-afraid-that-chinese-movies-are-becoming-too-good/

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).

finally released on DVD in a couple weeks

and blu-ray I hope?

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.

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.

"the effete boy and his prostitute girlfriend"

That part of the story is absolute fire.

The brothel scenes and Party chic worked.

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

On netflix instant

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, April 9, 2014 4:31 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

On netflix instant

― 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.

lol yeah.

in my defense i've written that date down and i'm gonna request that day off work to go.

oh, i didn't mean it in a bad way.

got tix for a screening of this next week, woohoo

That is sweet and sick

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

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.

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.

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.

South Florida didn't get it until February so it's going in my best list.

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.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfF7ZmKMUX0

This is kinda really bad haha

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?

http://i.imgur.com/iaD6uBa.jpg

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-33059234

new one is a change of pace, more like Stella Dallas meets Giant, except with GoogleTranslate instead of oil

mountains may depart is fantastic

ooo

watched Xiao Wu tonight, it was v. good

http://shanghaiist.com/2016/01/15/orange_truck_overturns.php

http://i.imgur.com/kFdnuz0.jpg

watching MMD tomorrow

I quite liked it, but not as much as A Touch of Sin

Lovely until the last chapter, in which Jia falters with the use of English.

didn't bother me much

at least not as much as the way no directors but QT and the Coens seem worthy of a new thread for each film

Start it!

Lovely until the last chapter, in which Jia falters with the use of English.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, March 7, 2016 2:41 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

this was fine, and probably only resonates if you're someone with experience of ESL in the chinese community, and second-generation overseas chinese.