Film Name:食罪人 / The Order
According to Wikipedia, sin eating is an ancient ritual that originated in England and Scotland. The sin eater would place a small piece of dry bread and a small bowl of beer on the chest of a dying person, recite an incantation, and then eat the bread and wine, so that the sin eater could eat the sins of the recipient’s life, cleanse them of their evil, and allow the recipient’s soul to ascend to heaven.
This practice clearly breaks the golden rule of Christianity, which advocates that “good people go to heaven and evil people go to hell”, and therefore sin-eaters are also regarded as heresy by the Church.
The original English title of the film was THE SIN EATER, but it was changed to THE ORDER to avoid offending the church.
According to the plot, the story of the feud is roughly like this: William’s brother dedicated his life to the Church and built St. Peter’s Cathedral, but was abandoned by the Church. After growing up, William became a sin eater, and for hundreds of years, he travelled around the world outside the Church, eating the sins of the wicked, but he gradually grew tired of this kind of life. He then lured Yali from New York to Rome by eating the sins of Yali’s teacher. In the course of investigating the death of his teacher, Yali is exposed to and acquainted with the ritual of sin-eating.
On the other hand, the Cardinal helps Iwilliam to lure Yaliy step by step into the trap they have set up and remove the Key of Paradise from the church, thus exchanging Iwilliam for canvassing votes for him in the pope election. Iwilliam lures Yaliy’s beloved girlfriend to commit suicide. After eating the sins of his girlfriend, the grief-stricken Yaliy goes to St. Peter’s Cathedral and stabs Iwilliy with the Key of Paradise.
It is at this moment that Yali realises that the result of stabbing the sin-eater with the Key of Heaven is that he himself becomes a new generation of sin-eaters.
Yali gains eternal life, but has to keep devouring the evil and sins of the earth in sin-eating.
At the end of the film, Yali allows the Cardinal to swallow his own sins and aspires to become a sin eater who punishes evil and good, bringing a bright ending to the story.
The film is described as having been in production since 1999, and after a series of twists and turns, including a change of casting for the Proctor, redoing of stunts, and other mishaps, it was only completed in 2002. Heath Ledger is too handsome and lacks the mysterious temperament of Johnny Depp.
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