In Jia Zhang-ke's A Touch of Sin four individuals revolt against their oppressive lives in contemporary China. It's one of those films whose backdrop is so rarely seen and fascinating we're tempted to ignore the narrative for it. But the stories are too strong to miss.

In a small northern town a loner in a green coat campaigns against the local politicos who have grown obscenely rich by skimming off the money from their sale of the collectively owned mine. The two main symbols are the Mao statue in the town square, all but ignored now, and the Maserati the boss bought and leaves outside his factory. The hero snaps and guns down everyone in his way to the boss, whom he kills at the Buddhist temple.

The second hero returns home on his motorcycle in a Chicago Bulls cap, to find the region scarred by high rises and the Three Gorges hydroelectric plant. The scenes seem like the usual awkward homecoming, till we learn he's just killed three men.

In the fourth story a young man leaves his factory job when he's expected to give his salary to a co-worker who badly injured his hand in a work accident. The boy works as a waiter in a high-priced brothel, where he's attracted to a young whore who reveals she's working to provide for her little daughter. Seeing no escape from the web of poverty and corruption the lad kills himself.

In the third story a sauna receptionist has broken off with her married lover. When a wealthy man flogs her with his bankroll to bully her into sex she kills him and wanders off bloodied and distracted. She returns in an epilogue, rehabilitated, applying for a job in different part of the country. When she watches a street theatre company the lead peers out at the audience and asks: "Do you know your sin?" But the camera holds on the audience, everyday faces, not the ones whose stories we have stumbled into. The implication is that while we have watched characters driven by ideals and desperation into sin perhaps there is a heavier sin among those prosaic citizens who have quietly put up with everything. If our four heroes have committed "a touch of sin," the collective sins of omission weigh heavier still. For more see www.yacowar.blogspot.com.

A TOUCH OF SIN is a hard-hitting anthology from mainland China, looking at how social issues can lead to sudden bursts of unexpected and extreme violence. It's completely unlike the majority of Chinese mainstream movies, mostly concerned with propaganda and promoting Chinese values; this is much grittier, more downbeat, to the degree that it becomes completely nihilistic.

It's also a fine piece of cinema and thoroughly compelling. There are four stories here in which various injustices lead to violence, and of these the opening story, a DEATH WISH-style effort in which Jiang Wu's sympathetic lead is driven over the edge by the corruption he sees around him, is by far the best and most compelling. The second story has KUNG FU KILLER's Wang Baoqiang playing another baddie with a ruthless streak; the third has a dispossessed young woman who has been generally unlucky in life, while the last is a story of young and idealistic love. Although all of the stories are rather depressing, they're very well acted and directed, and the violence is superbly portrayed to the kind of shocking extreme that Hollywood just can't handle these days.

I found this Chinese film, like many other foreign language pictures in recent years, in the pages of the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, I hoped it would be another worthy entry. Basically set in present day modern China, apparently based on real events from the recent past, the film revolves around four characters from vastly different geographical locations of the country, and of different social backgrounds and surroundings. The stories, ranging from the busy southern metropolis of Guangzho and Donggaun to the more rural areas of towns such as Shanxi, see each character committing a random act of violence, and the individual stories focus on their often bizarre reasoning behind them, and whether they can get away with it, or face the consequences. Dahai (Wu Jiang) is an angry miner, enraged by widespread corruption in his village, he decides to take justice into his own hands. Zhou San (Baoqiang Wang) is a rootless migrant who discovers the infinite possibilities of owning a firearm, and it seems that anybody could be his next target. Xiao Yu (Tao Zhao) is a young receptionist who dates a married man man and works at a local sauna, but she is pushed beyond her limits by an abusive client, so goes out of her way to make them pay. Xiao Hui (Lanshan Luo) is a young factory worker who goes from one disheartening job to another, and he only faces increasingly degrading circumstances, it is unclear what truly leads him to off the edge. The four overlapping stories of characters going to extremes for different, mostly minor or bizarre reasons, are all interesting, their violent turns are the most memorable moments, and to see how they get on following their kills or whatever, there's a good amount of bloody stuff, it also works as a satirical look at how economic transformation changes people, a great drama. Very good!