That Mountain, That Man, That Dog (那山那人那狗) ~ Chinese Movies&TV

Today, I will introduce a Chinese film which called That Mountain, That Man, That Dog (那山那人那狗nà shān nà rén nà gǒu). So let us have a brief introduction.

That Mountain, That Man, That Dog is a 1999 Chinese film directed by Huo Jianqi (霍建起Huò Jiànqǐ ). It is based on the short story of the same name by Peng Jianming (彭见明Péng Jiànmíng ).

Postmen in the Mountains tells the story of an old man who for years served as the postman for rural mountain communities. Retiring, he hands over his job to his son, but accompanies him on the first tour. Together, they deliver mail on a 230 li (about 115 km) long walking route, into the rural heart of China and in the process the son learns from the mails’ recipients more about the father he hardly knew.

Plot

The film is set in the mountainous regions of the western Hunan (湖南Húnán) province in the early 1980s. At the film’s start, a young man begins his first journey as a postman at the mountainous rural areas of the aforesaid regions. His father, a veteran postman forced to retire due to a bad knee, decides to accompany him together with the family’s faithful dog, Buddy.

The father walks his son through the nitty-gritty of the job, and the son realizes the mailman job entails not just the sending of letters. He witnesses his father’s deep friendship with the villagers, and participates in a wedding celebration with the Dong people. The film includes a number of memory flashbacks, as well as many pop songs played on the son’s transistor radio (including Michael Learns to Rock’s “That’s Why You Go Away”, which is an anachronism given that the film is set in the early 1980s).