Social Decay and Violence in Jia Zhangke’s A Touch of Sin: The Transformation of the Modern Knights-errant in Chinese Cinema

It is no secret that the rapid transformation of Chinese society over the past century has created an intellectual divide in the conceptualization of the near past. With the rise of visual production, cinema in Hong Kong and China has flourished with the production of historically set films which are constantly imagining and reimagining the depiction of the ideal hero archetype, known as the knights-errant throughout Chinese history. The knights-errant operate according to their own innate sense of justice, while also adhering to concepts such as honor and benevolence as a way of qualifying the Chinese distant past . The knights-errant are not motivated to inflict excessive violence for the sake of accomplishing their goals, rather they are more often depicted in a “defensive” light. By acting after an event has gone wrong, their sense of justice is elevated to the viewer. The reactionary nature of the knights-errant has its limitations, however; A Touch of Sin (2013) by Jia Zhangke aims to question these limitations of the classic Chinese hero by exploring the concept of intense violence to break away from circumstance, which provides excellent contrast to the socio-cultural issues present in modern China.

Therefore, this paper will be concerned with two conceptual issues: First, the visualization of Decay A Touch of Sin functioning as not only a critique of the failures of modernization, but also as a sign of the need for the knights-errant to evolve to properly capture these emotions – specifically regarding individual action. Once this framework has been established, it becomes possible to illuminate the second issue, which is the agency created by violence. Zhangke created a film where the characters resort to intense violence as a means of defying their irrelevancy in the Chinese system, subsequently subverting the typical role of the knights-errant . This film is not a typical representation of the knights-errant for two reasons: first, it is not set in the historical past of China, thus the imagination of morality is inherently different. Second, this film departs from the usage of martial arts and swordplay which are typical in other manifestations of the hero in Chinese media – the use of guns as a primary weapon brings the violence to another tier . Analysis of these two conceptual issues from this film will enable scholars to appreciate the complex feelings that Chinese citizens have regarding the widening gap from the near past to the present and how traditional portrayals of hero archetypes may no longer be sufficient in capturing the attitudes of Chinese workers in today’s day and age.

Decay exists within three strata: urban, rural, and social. These strata are functionally relevant to A Touch of Sin by Jia Zhangke because it utilizes it to capture the greater implications of the economic and social shifts within widespread China. Dai Jinhua refers to these spaces as chronotopes – spaces which were once industrially or socially significant . If this definition is to be taken at face value, the gap between the chronotope and perspective of the director is where our concerns lie. A Touch of Sin highlights the decaying of rural areas which no longer generate revenue now that businesses have migrated out of town. Zhangke makes it a point to show this growing disparity between the decay of the rural and the prominence of the urban by creating visually contrasting backdrops throughout the film. Additionally, three of the four characters all travel to find work, indicating a dilapidated system which no longer allows the average person to remain “local” to make a living. While we can see these two distinct forms of decay without significant thought, the third form of decay is represented much more subtly. Social Decay is not only referring to the loss of social mobility, but also to the political and economic degradation which has left workers scrambling to any distance to survive. Visualization of these layers of Decay is tantamount to conceptualizing the meta understanding of this as a visual piece of author bias.

Zhangke’s film is set around 2013, some sixty years after the Communist revolution in mainland China. Information regarding the exact temporal placement of his film becomes evident towards the end of the film. By flowing through four unique vignettes, Zhangke locates the desperation felt in multiple spaces across China. The simmering boils over when each of the characters – Da Hai, Zhou San, Xiao Yu, and Xiao Hui – resort to extreme violence as a way enacting their own justices against a system that has consistently repressed them. In this sense, the figure of the knights-errant has been transformed from an egoistic force for the greater good to a jingoistic force for personal satisfaction . In Jiwei Xiao’s article China Unraveled: Violence, Sin, and Art in Jia Zhangke’s A Touch of Sin notes that this style is indeed effective in making an impression, this film is a multilayered critique on the importance of being able to view contemporary Chinese social history as an intertextual subject . By looking at each character and merging this intertextuality within the context of the stratification of Decay, we will be able to approach the realities presented by the conceptual wrinkle of Nostalgia as a motivator for historically inspired character types.

Da Hai is the character which A Touch of Sin opens with – he is a former miner in a village in the Shanxi province in northern China . Immediately as viewers we are privy to the “standard of living” gap between the average villager and the character Jiao Shengli. The transformation of the economy has made it so that the collective profits of the village almost exclusively go to Jiao – he is reaping significant profits at the expense of the village decaying. This disparity supports the second and third spheres of decay, that is, rural and social decay. Miners and former miners such as Da Hai are scraping by, having to travel for work quite frequently because of these economic disparities. Social degradation is also at play – not only does Zhangke draw the viewers’ attention to details such as an old statue of Mao, but we also bear witness to the dilapidated relationship between the struggling villagers and the now prominent Jiao. When “Boss Jiao” arrives in his newly purchased jet, the villagers are made to be happy go lucky at the achievements of Jiao at their expense; from the perspective of the viewer Da Hai’s dissent is clear, he is not happy that the village is being taken advantage of by the economic and political system. After being roughed up and offered a bribe for challenging Jiao’s platform again, Da Hai takes matters into his own hands and brutally murders the village accountant, village chief, an advisor, Jiao, and a traveling merchant. His satisfaction grows as he exacts his vision of justice, he enjoyed doing this . Do these actions truly resolve the disparities that the village is experiencing? While Zhangke does not reveal this answer to the audience explicitly, it can be understood that his actions are just a small reclamation of personal agency in an age of mass market policy.

The strangest character in this story, who also ties the plot together is Zhou San – unlike the other characters his motivations for killing are not grounded in revenge or emotional backlash. His violent outbursts do not have a “reason” in comparison to the other vignettes, it is entertainment. Turning to violent measures gives a semblance of change from an otherwise mundane existence as a migratory worker from the countryside. He appears to simply find life in the countryside boring and mundane – when he returns to his home village for Chinese New Year festivities, we see a very clear display of the rural decay paradigm; the background of the modern, prosperous city is contrasted by the foreground of the derelict village which appears to be a “dead end” for those who reside within its confines . Zhangke cleverly posits his commentary on rural decay and social decay within the small village Zhou San is from. This perspective of degradation is supplemented by the strained relationship he has with his nuclear family, in a titillating scene we become aware that he has a very dilapidated relationship with his wife and son, as well as with his siblings. To him, all these local affairs are a waste of time, yet he still returns out of what appears to be an unwilling obligation. What was once a place for youth to invigorate themselves during the height of Mao has now been relegated to stunting the growth of the next generation because of false dreams and perspectives which are now deadlocked in place . Zhou San has no regard for the traditional values he was undoubtedly raised with being from the countryside, highlighting how the breakdown of these values is a serious issue for small rural communities across China. The degeneration of his morality and concern for life outside of his own is the keynote which Zhangke is trying, and effectively, striking for the viewer. If morality is truly decaying in the countryside because of rapid and invasive urbanism, should we be shocked to see a rise in amoral individuals who enact violence? Zhou San is a significant departure from the earlier presented themes of knights-errant agency, because there is a clear absence of functioning under the pretense of moral based justice .

In the third vignette, we follow Xiao Yu as she navigates an unnamed city as a receptionist. This takes place alongside the viewer being made aware that she was pursuing a relationship with a married man. Her affair with this man is a twofold tragedy: first, he ends up dying in a train accident unbeknownst to her while returning from a secret rendezvous they had, and second, she is ultimately run out of town by the wife of the now deceased romantic interest when the wife finds her with hired thugs to enact physical violence on Xiao Yu. Her displacement because of this incident is unfortunate, and while Xiao Yu does not respond from this instance, as viewers we begin to see a correlation between personal vindication and a violent act – according to Zhangke these concepts go hand in hand. Xiao Yu resorts to violence when she refuses to sexually accommodate a wealthy patron at the hot spring she was working at, rather than when she was conducting illicit behavior. Perhaps the most disturbing scene, she is beat over the head with a wad of cash as the man curses her out for not accepting – the commodification of sexual acts for money in this scene not only describes significant gender concerns for migrant workers, but also highlights the deep social depravity that equates money as a “cure-all” for personal desires . This is yet another layer of Social Decay presented by Zhangke; the commodification of women as an ever available service from modernization. Xiao Yu ends up killing this patron when she could take the harassment and objectification no longer. Unlike Da Hai, she was not being jingoistic, she was simply defending herself against the corrupt machine violating her dignity . Regardless of this distinction between the character types, this inversion of the typical knights-errant shows how the role can evolve effectively to capture the internal diaspora faced by the workforce.

The final vignette follows a young migrant worker named Xiao Hui, who moves to a different place of work following an accident he was a part of. His departure from this incident is initially portrayed as a favorable move – he did not have to stick around to deal with the repercussions, suggesting the benefits of having to travel for work. When he is brought into the new workplace, he begins to have a budding romance with another worker, Lianrong. This relationship was rooted in a pseudo-classist ideology, in that his advancements are rejected for numerous reasons including economic status compared to the patrons that come in. Xiao Hui is interesting in comparison to the other characters because he is perhaps the most naïve – all the other vignettes feature middle-aged people rather than youthful characters. Wang refers to this cycle as the result of a corrupted neoliberal economy, where despite being given freedom to move and find work, the agency for the individual worker is very minimal, leading to the possibility of being exploited . The irony of having the mobility to work yet being stuck in a seemingly inescapable reality of being “lower class” is consistent when compared to the earlier vignettes presented by Zhangke. While workers supposedly benefit from being able to travel for work, we see a critical approach towards this concept as only being able to be resolved by hyperviolent actions. Tragically, the only way for Xiao Hui to escape this cycle, in his mind, was to commit suicide following the fallout with his own family over the issue of money. He was not alone in doing this, his suicide in the film was a direct nod to the mass suicides of Foxconn workers between 2010-2013 because of exploitative conditions in tandem with replaceability. Zhangke utilizes this tragic historical moment to cement A Touch of Sin temporally as a sort of “final result” of widespread capitalism further dividing social norms for youth within China. Xiao Hui’s arc is set apart from the others in the film because while it is a reaction driven by charged emotions due to economic disparities, this violence is self-inflicted rather than lashed out on another. He too was subject to the effects of social decay in that his relationships to his immediate circle became alienated due to the economic shifts degrading the structure of family at its base . From this perspective, Xiao Hui’s reaction could be a “knee-jerk”, however it is somewhat reductive to view the mass suicide that way when considered against the backdrop of violence being presented by Zhangke as the solution, whether it is self-inflicted or not. In the mind of the director, breaking a cycle of unjust abuse can only be done by destroying an aspect of that system, whether it is the head of the issue like in Da Hai’s instance, or the elimination of a participant in the case of Xiao Hui.

Choosing to utilize four different characters with different experiences, woven together by the traveling of Zhou San was nothing short of brilliant by Zhangke. Establishment of multiple chronotopes through different character perspectives highlights how widespread the issues that modern China faces today are. The erasure of isolation created an uncontrollable sense of social failure, as rural communities are left with no choice but to connect to the urban environments which are supposedly causing the varying stratification of decay that is being experienced. At the same time, the ever-widening wealth disparity between urban and rural has led to a decaying of the social standards of communities which can no longer support themselves. Within this framework, the turn to violence as a means of creating change provides a form of agency for areas which have lost their autonomy before they fade into complete obscurity. We see this manifest through the perspective of Zhangke’s displaced and unsatisfied characters, who each enact a level of violence as a commentary on the extremes which creating reform must resort to. Zhangke is not encouraging violence to be carried out by those who view the film, rather, he is suggesting that in order to break away from the current cycle, there needs to be some form of extreme dissent to recapture individual agency . Departing from the traditional representation of the knights-errant captures the reality that despite existing under the same regime as earlier films do, the fabric of society is so fundamentally different in the contemporary period that outdated heroic tendencies are unable to provide complete visualization of the complex social issues which have emerged. By creating an appeal using violence, the viewer is forced to confront the implication that the only way to return to a point of relevancy is through non-traditional means, which subsequently forces the acknowledgement of insufficient hero representation in Chinese film and media.