POSTMEN IN THE MOUNTAINS - Shadow Distribution

HUO JIANQI
Director
As a popular Chinese saying goes, "Great minds mature slowly." Huo Jianqi showed his talent
for directing movies very late. The amateur burst onto the international scene in at the age of 40,
with the release of the impressive, heart-warming, small- budget production "Postman in the
Mountains (Nashan, Naren, Nagou). It is perhaps for that reason that Huo is frequently addressed
by many as a "young director," despite the fact that he is actually the peer of the country's famous
"fifth generation." In fact, many paramount fifth generation directors who are currently
dominating Chinese cinema, for example Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige, were his schoolmates
back in the late 1970s and early 1980s at the Beijing Film Academy.
In 1995, Huo made his directorial debut with "The Winner (Ying Jia)," which won several
critical awards in China. The play was written by his wife Qiu Shi, an MA graduate of Beijing
Normal University. "I was yearning to shoot my own movies, but I had no money to employ
playwrights, so I had to let her write them," Huo said. Following that, he made "The Singer (Ge
Shou)," "Postman in the Mountains ," "A Love of Blueness " and "Life Show (Shenghuo Xiu)."
The scripts of these movies were all written by Qiu Shi. All have at least one thing in common
they all focus on sincere relationships between people. Together, they establish a unique,
unaffected style with a minimum of the theatrical elements.
Huo strives to find answers to questions engendered during China's transition from a traditional
society into a modern, Western-style, hurried one. Huo's two latest works, "Life Show" and
"Nuan" continue this tradition. The former is about a divorced woman in her 30s who runs a
small restaurant in an old section of Wuhan in Central China's Hubei Province. The film offers a
glimpse into the confusing times of such transformation. "Nuan," which won the Tokyo Grand
Prix, the Governor of Tokyo Award, at the 16th Tokyo International Film Festival last
November, is about a young man who, after 10 years in the city, returns to his childhood village
where he reunites with his old love. All the movies convey sentiments that seem to arise from
deep inside the characters, overflowing to the surface -an effect that many Chinese directors fail
to achieve, and that has been viewed as Huo Jianqi's unique flavour.
SI WU
Screenwriter
Si Wu is the pen name of SU XIAOWEI, who is the best partner of director Huo Jianqi not only
in films, but also in life (They've been married for 17 years). Her works include "The Winner
(Ying Jia)" 1995 (winner of 2 awards at the Golden Rooster Awards China), "Life Show (Sheng
Huo Xiu)" 2002 (winner of 3 awards at the 6th Shanghai International Film Festival China),
"Nuan" 2003 (winner of the Golden Kylin Award-Best Feature Film Award at the 16th Tokyo
International Film Festival Japan).
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