Why does the Shilin Wang family urban renewal case remind people of Jia Zhangke's A Touch of Sin?
A gun, a knife, a leap from a tall building - what is the truth hidden behind it all? A corrupt society, a group of pedantic villagers, a money-first mentality, all of it pushing an ordinary person to the point of choosing madness, choosing to resolve things with a knife, a gun, a jump from a building. The absurdity of Chinese society, from Lu Xun's time to now, still runs in circles, unchanged; it looks like outrage, but is in fact tragedy.
On the same day after watching the film, word came that one member of the Shilin Wang family, unable to bear the gradually mounting psychological pressure over the long term, led the way in tearing down the house themselves. The next day, a group of builders' "black-clad men" and the "consenting households" faced off against the remaining Wang family members who still held fast to their home, along with members of the public; then the "consenting households" knelt and begged the Wang family, asking the Wangs to let them go home.
Jia Zhangke's "A Touch of Sin" depicts Chinese society in bloody detail - cannibalistic and pedantic - and why should the same phenomenon not also be happening in Taiwan, China? The majority of Wenlin Yuan residents who consented to urban renewal, stirred up by the builders' sowing of discord, continue to be used by the builders to hold the Wang family hostage, using collective "misery" to pressure the Wang family, who do not wish to take part in the urban renewal: sacrifice yourself, fulfill others, create pedantry.
Does whether Shilin's "Wenlin Yuan" gets built or not have an absolute relationship to whether the Wang house is demolished or not? The Wang residence sits in one corner - does that have anything to do with whether the whole building can be completed? If those who consented to the urban renewal are anxious to "go home," they should pressure the builders to change the construction plan and build immediately, achieving the best of both worlds, rather than, as now, leaving both sides wounded.
In other words, what can truly fulfill the "consenting households'" wish to go home is not the Wang family's willingness, but the builders' willingness. Today the consenting households instead ask the Wang family to yield and bow with them under brute power; if the Wang family members refuse, must they then settle it with a knife, a gun, with their lives? Either kill someone, or kill themselves! With such an outcome, can "going home" still be peaceful?
(Text: Shi Yun)
The First Chapter of the Urban Renewal Calamity - Shilin Wang Family (Author: Shi Yun)
Wenlin Yuan Urban Renewal Dispute: Second-Generation Wang Family Member Tears Down House Himself (PTS Reporter: Zhong Shengxiong)