Jia Zhangke, A Touch of Sin, and the Use of Animals to Represent Corruption.

Jia Zhangke’s newest feature, A Touch of Sin, is a giant departure from his more neo-realist inspired films. A Touch of Sin has been compared to the work of Quentin Tarantino and Johnnie To, often using violence for symbolic meaning. However violence towards animals specifically is a reoccurring motif, bypassing that would be ignoring an important message in Zhangke’s feature.

Zhangke uses violence throughout towards animals and humans interchangeably. Violence against both is used by those who have lost hope within China’s new found wealth, and is seen as their only means to regain any sort of control. We are repeatedly shown that when people have been reduced to their weakest point, lashing out seems the only logical response. This is most clearly portrayed in the opening section of A Touch of Sin.  Dahai (Wu Jiang)is a man who has lost faith with trying to do things fairly, and instead lashes out in a rage of gunfire. Dahai however, doesn’t just shoot those who have become corrupt and have taken advantage of the locals, he also kills an average man who we are shown has relentlessly been whipping his horse. We can assume this man is whipping the horse due to this his frustration at, perhaps, his only source of income, one that has become tired, and old. He knows that if the horse gives up, he is left hopeless in a country that has developed too rapidly for him and is quickly leaving him behind. The man has been left with nothing but this last resort, to let out his frustrations with violence, even though he is surely aware this will only exacerbate the problem. He has become part of the cycle of corruption and violence through no fault of his own, with Zhangke suggesting that corruption and violence are two of the same thing. As Dahai is attempting to rid the whole area of this corruption/violence, and placing the innocent first, this man becomes a victim of Dahai’s rage.  Dahai is aware of the corruption that happens around, and with being aware of this, as well at the fact that he has lost faith in the government, accepts the fact that he must resort to killing. Dahai however ensures that he will instead use this in order to defend the innocent, both human and animal. With Dahai killing this man, a person who could be seen as a symbolic representation of a man attempting to reassert dominance over an ‘inferior’ creature, Dahai takes upon a duel role, where he becomes the symbolic revenge of those who have fallen victim of an abusive, corrupt government for both humans and animals. Dahai (a character that could be seen as Zhengke’s release of his own frustrations with the government) sees the abuse of power not only in those who take advantage of humans, but also those who take advantage of animals. By wrapping his gun with the image of a tiger, he has symbolically become a defender of both the down-trodden human and animal, and given power back to both. Both gun and tiger are, after all, seen as the most powerful weapon for mankind, and most powerful creature in the animal kingdom.

The image of whipping is repeated later on in the film, where Xiao Yu (Zhao Tao) is beaten in the same manner, this time however with wads of cash. This far more explicate use of symbolism shows Zhangke’s belief that money has become the dominate force in modern China, and this has lead to the abuse of power. By repeating the image of the beating of the horse, this time on Xiao Yu, Zhangke lays the abusive nature of the Communist Party as not being mutually exclusive to just humans or animals. Zhangke see’s the rise of importance of money, and the governments shift towards capitalism as being the key reason why rural China has seen itself left behind the urban, increasingly cosmopolitan sprawls that the cities have become. Money, for Zhangke, has become a weapon as powerful as the gun, or the tiger.

Corruption has become intertwined with violence for Zhangke, and A Touch of Sin shows how quickly this has gone out of control. By using the basis of real stories found on Weibo, Zhangke stitched together stories the breadth of the country in order to reinforce this belief, and to demonstrate the far-reaching impacts that the dramatic reforms made by the Chinese government have had on the average citizen, and to attempt to demonstrate why a rise in extremely violent crime has recently become an important talking point in Chinese social media.