the above reviewer is either out of his mind or being deliberately and hilarious obtuse. This film has nothing to do with the bureaucracy of a state run post office and everything to do with urban alienation, the infectiousness of voyeurism and the connection between the two-as one's life becomes more and more invested in the lives of others one can only become more alienated from the content of one's own life. The film is incredibly low budget and while it lends it an interesting aesthetic of degradation, mirrored by a wonderfully evocative and low key score, at times it tends to interfere with the narrative, making characters quite difficult to separate from one another-for example, i didn't realise until after the film that he sleeps with his sister-i thought it was the prostitute Wang Jun-and this is not me being inadvertently racist as my Chinese wife still maintains that it was indeed the prostitute. I am an enormous fan of so called sixth (or urban) generation cinema and this is a fine example for anyone looking for interesting and challenging entrance. I would also recommend anything by Jia Zhangke and Li Yang.
2 Reviews
Very provocative, challenging and occasionally confusing movie
davidjjenkins721 March 2010
Warning: Spoilers
The simple story of postman
zzmale7 April 2004
This movie is just a simple story about friendship and romance about very ordinary people, but with a hidden message behind it.
The hidden message is that by describing the problems at the post station via the experience of those who worked there, it is actually a subtle form of criticism on the inefficient and sometimes ineffective bureaucracy of the state-owned-enterprises. (Not surprisingly, Post Offices in the states are not that much efficient in comparison to other business, though it is still better than those in China).
This movie can be simply done Chinese themselves and it is not clear why it had to be jointly made with Hong Kong because it is not politically sensitive.
The hidden message is that by describing the problems at the post station via the experience of those who worked there, it is actually a subtle form of criticism on the inefficient and sometimes ineffective bureaucracy of the state-owned-enterprises. (Not surprisingly, Post Offices in the states are not that much efficient in comparison to other business, though it is still better than those in China).
This movie can be simply done Chinese themselves and it is not clear why it had to be jointly made with Hong Kong because it is not politically sensitive.
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