A unique, carefully crafted film that blends exotic locale, forbidden romance and thriller, “Touch” is an accomplished feature from writer/director Aleksandra Szczepanowska. Szczepanowska also stars as Fei Fei, a Caucasian dance teacher living in China. Although she speaks the language and follows Chinese customs, she is not fully accepted in her adopted country. Fei Fei is married to successful businessman Zhang Huaand (Yang Jun) and the mother of a young son Momo. Despite her accomplishments and her well-to-do life, she’s still thwarted by authorities when it comes to obtaining Chinese citizenship. Fei Fei’s outsider status, even with her husband who hosts gatherings with his male friends at which Fei Fei is little more than an accessory, is a theme that’s effectively woven throughout the film.
It doesn’t come as a shock when Fei Fei meets and is drawn to young blind masseuse Bai Yu (Yuan Jiangwei). After a few sessions that increasingly explore intimacy, these two outsiders in a country with strict traditions and roles fall into a tempestuous affair. The film mounts in tension as, sensing danger and fearing that her husband knows, Fei Fei ends the relationship. But Bai Yu now has transformed from naive and smitten to obsessed. In full “Fatal Attraction” vengeance, he even seeks out Momo in a desperate attempt to win Fei Fei’s attention. But she is a fierce mother and will do anything to protect her child, even sending the boy away as she changes the all locks in the house.
As melodramatic as much of this is, the film is shot and staged with enough sophistication and Hitchcockian flair that it avoids “Lifetime movie” cliche and tawdriness. “Touch” is an intriguing and well-paced drama that unfolds, with refreshing confidence, from the point of view of a woman who both transgresses and embraces social norms.
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