Violence, wuxia, migrants: Jia Zhangke's cinematic discontent in A Touch of Sin

Abstract

This article examines the representation of violence in Jia Zhangke's film A Touch of Sin (2013) in light of Žižek's theory of ‘objective violence’ and the wuxia tradition. Jia attempts to understand the rise of individual violent incidents during China's post-socialist transformations by laying out the social, historical and political milieus in which they take place. He unveils the Žižekian objective violence hidden in the realm of social normality, pinpointing the country's sins of collusion with the global capital to impose injustice on the poor and disadvantaged. Invoking the wuxia genre, Jia portrays the protagonists not so much as perpetrators of violence but as xia, knights-errant, who demonstrate a precious spirit of rebellion that the contemporary ethos tends to lack. Focusing on often overlooked emotional experiences, Jia offers a humanist insight into the depths of these people's despair, isolation and humiliation. Jia, thereby, makes his film a poignant critique of the dominant ideology that pushes neoliberal development regardless of its human costs.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. For instance, Justin Chang (2013) highlights A Touch of Sin's resemblance to the works of Quentin Tarantino and Takashi Miike, claiming it to be ‘unquestionably Jia's most mainstream-friendly work’.

2. The article does not intend to offer an overall assessment of neoliberalism in China. Rather, it takes interest in how Jia Zhangke reminds us of the oft-overlooked human costs during China's neoliberalization process and how Jia's film contributes to our understanding of everyday violence in the contemporary era. For detailed discussions on China's neoliberal practice and its entanglement with the state, see Ong (2006) and Rofel (2007).

3. Tony Rayns contributed to the English subtitles for A Touch of Sin.

4. The irony is that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership has often coined corruption and increased inequality as the most pressing social issues today. However, the party pronounces these terms more like a public performance. The goal is to appease the disadvantaged by giving them a false hope rather than to encourage a thorough investigation of the root of these social malaises. The anti-corruption campaign, for instance, targets some individual corrupt officials, leaving grave problems lying within the political and legal system of the government largely unchecked. It is in this sense that class is a repressed issue, one that is prohibited from any further in-depth discussion.

5. Ironically, the image of Mao remains glaringly present on the 100 yuan note. However, no longer evoking socialist ideals such as equality and social justice, Mao is there only to represent the party of which he is a founder. Mao's image, thus, functions to legitimize the party's rule. In this light, the design of the one hundred-dollar bill discloses thoroughly the party-run state's fusion with global capital.

6. In his interview with The New York Times, Jia Zhangke (2013c) clarifies that his intent is by no means to approve actions of violence. He says, ‘Violence is extremely destructive. I hope that the audience will understand these characters as I do but not identify with their methods’.

7. With regard to the discussion on Jia's melding fiction with documentary, see also Shu-chin Wu (2011) and Jiwei Xiao (2011). While Wu examines how Jia's hybrid narrative strategy contributes to a layered understanding of time and history, Xiao concentrates on such a mixture's efficacy in divulging personal memory while forestalling nostalgia.

8. Lu Xun was utterly concerned with the bystander gesture of many Chinese people in the early twentieth century. As Michael Berry observes, “The crowd of onlookers is a motif that occurs throughout Lu Xun's fictional universe, starting at the madman in ‘diary of a madman’ eagerly awaiting the execution in ‘medicine,’ cheering at the legendary decapitation slide in ‘Preface to call to Arms’ or gawking at Ah Q in disappointment when he gets shot instead of decapitated in the True story of Ah Q” (2009, 47). Jia Zhangke has carried on this motif of Lu Xun's in his own works. In the final scene of Xiao Wu, for example, we see that the crowd of observers surrounds the protagonist, Xiao Wu, savoring his public humiliation. For detailed analysis of this scene, see Berry (2009) and Liu (2006).

9. The play is adapted from the popular novel Yu Tang Chun Meets Her Husband, written by Feng Menglong (1574–1646). It is set in the Ming dynasty, telling the love story of Courtesan Su San, known as Yu Tangchun, and a young scholar. The most famous episode of this play is when Su San, having been framed for a crime, is on trial during the re-examination of her case. Su San's wrong is finally rectified with the help of her former lover, now an official, and the lovers reunite at the end of the play.

10. Jia Zhangke has admitted on many occasions that it was Chen Kaige's Yellow Earth that incited his passion for cinema.

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Yanjie Wang

Yanjie Wang is an Assistant Professor of Chinese Literature and Cinema in Asian and Pacific Studies at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA, USA. Her areas of interest include Chinese literature and cinema, displacement, migration and globalization, and gender and sexuality. She has published in American Journal of Chinese Studies, Asian Cinema, Situations: Cultural Studies in the Asian Context, etc.