Watch: Trailer for Touch of Sin, Jia Zhangke's Scathing New Movie about Modern China

Chinese director Jia Zhangke rose to fame directing sullen, methodically-paced dramas about life in modern China, and his latest effort continues this theme, albeit with a far less subtle edge.

According to Salon.com:

“A Touch of Sin” both is and is not like Jia’s other films, which include “Still Life,” “The World” and “Unknown Pleasures,” along with several documentaries. Locations for these four allegorical tales are similarly downscale, ranging from brothels to bus and train stations to beaten-down peasants’ households to a dormitory for industrial workers. And then there’s all the killing. It would be a mistake to advertise this as an action movie – although some American distributor probably will – because it sets up false expectations. But Jia has evidently decided he’s done with subtlety and wants to move to a starker level of metaphor. Drawing on several different spectacular true-crime stories – a relatively new phenomenon in China – he delivers an art-house film with the body count of a “Die Hard” sequel.

The film is currently one of the top contenders for the coveted Palm D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and the critical hype is building to fever pitch in the international press.

Given its controversial subject matter and purportedly gratuitous violence, it's difficult to say if the film will ever be screened here in China, but now you can get a good idea by viewing the trailer on Youku.