• Source: Postman (1995 film)

Postman (Original title: Yóuchāi) is a 1995 Chinese Mandarin drama film directed by He Jianjun and produced by Tian Yan, Shu Kei. It is the story of a shy mailman played by Feng Yuanzheng who steals and reads the letters of people on his route. The film is considered part of China's sixth generation movement.
During the making of Postman the director faced a ban and managed to release the film abroad only after smuggling print outs out of the country and completing the film abroad.




Cast


Feng Yuanzheng as Xiao Dou, postman
Liang Danni as Xiao Dou's sister
Zhixing Ge as Lao Wu, older postman
Jue Chen as Chen Jie, writer
Huang Jianxin as Yun Qing
Zhizi Liu as Post Office Manager
Pu Cunxin as Xiao sister's Boyfriend
Tianwei Zheng as Wan Juan




Plot


Xiao Dou (Feng Yuanzheng) is a shy and naive mailworker living in Beijing with his sister. When a coworker is fired for reading people's correspondences Xiao Dou takes over the same mail route. He soon finds himself indulging in the same curiosity, eventually developing an obsession. Xiao Dou chooses to spend time reading letters instead of socializing with friends or coworkers. As he becomes increasingly tied to the letters, he begins to intervene in the lives of those who write and receive the letters.
As Xiao Dou's amorality and detachment become more severe, his obsessions expand, as he engages in an incestuous relationship to his own sister. By the end of the film, Xiao Dou no longer considers the feelings of anyone else.




Reception


Reception of Postman in the west was marked by shock and praise. Standing in contrast to many of the more polished filmmaking coming from China during the mid-1990s, such as Chen Kaige's Temptress Moon (1996) or Zhang Yimou's To Live (1994) and Raise the Red Lantern (1991), Postman was a contemporary snapshot of modern China. Scholars and critics alike grouped the film as part of the up-and-coming Sixth Generation movement that began with Zhang Yuan, Wang Xiaoshuai, and others. Today, Postman is considered one of the more important works to come out of the early years of the movement. China cinema scholar Shelly Kraicer referred to the film as "one of the most disturbing and important recent films out of China" in her review. Critics found the film "transgressive" in its satire and its unblinking depiction of homosexuality, prostitution, drug-use and adultery.
Further illustrating the film's reputation was its inclusion in the Harvard Film Archive's retrospective on the sixth generation in 2001, "The Urban Generation: Chinese Cinema and Society in Transformation."




= Awards

=
1995 International Film Festival Rotterdam
Tiger Award (shared with: Kazama Shiori's Fuyu No Kappa and Bogdan Dumitrescu's Thalassa, Thalassa, Return To The Sea)
FIPRESCI Award
1995 International Thessaloniki Film Festival
Golden Alexander
1995 Singapore International Film Festival
Special Jury Prize




References






External links


Postman at IMDb
Postman at the Chinese Movie Database

Kata Kunci Pencarian:

• National Board of Review Awards 1995
• Il Postino
• Kevin Costner
• Penghargaan Asosiasi Kritikus Film Los Angeles 1995
• Film Berbahasa Asing Terbaik (Critics' Choice Movie Award)
• Academy Award untuk Film Terbaik
• British Academy Film Awards ke-49
• Lana Turner
• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions
• Jim Broadbent
• Postman (1995 film)
• Il Postino: The Postman
• Postman (disambiguation)
• The Postman
• 1995 in film
• Neil Postman
• Postman Blues
• Jacob's Ladder (1990 film)
• Braveheart
• Kevin Costner