Retribution opens with the raucous festivities surrounding the annual
procession to honor the Bodhisattva Guanyin. Changsheng, the young wife
of the local coffin maker Liu Laoshi, is raped while making an offering
to Guanyin in the hope of increasing her chances of bearing a son.
Changsheng hangs herself following the encounter, and Liu Laoshi exacts
bloody vengeance on the rapist's own wife and favorite prostitute. This
act of sexual violence and its retribution provide the narrative pivot
around which is woven a web of interconnecting stories, whose characters
and events provide divergent perspectives on the rape and its aftermath.
The result is an unforgettable exploration of the intersections of
sexual desire, sadism, folk belief, and the inexorable cycles of karmic
retribution.