Postman Blues

1997 [JAPANESE]

Action / Comedy / Crime / Drama

7
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 89% · 1 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 89% · 500 ratings
IMDb Rating 7.4/10 10 2121 2.1K

yakuza postman

Plot summary

Sawaki is a postman who's not quite thrilled about his boring way of life. But his life is about to change when he delivers mail to his old schoolmate Noguchi, who's now a member of the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia, and just finished cutting his little finger off.

Director

SABU Photo
SABU

Top cast

Keisuke Horibe Photo
Keisuke Horibe as Noguchi
Hiroshi Shimizu Photo
Hiroshi Shimizu as Domon
Susumu Terajima Photo
Susumu Terajima as Detective Maeda
Yôji Tanaka Photo
Yôji Tanaka as Killer
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB
1019.43 MB
1280*718
Japanese 2.0
NR
Subtitles ja  
23.976 fps
1 hr 50 min
Seeds 3
1.85 GB
1920*1078
Japanese 2.0
NR
Subtitles ja  
23.976 fps
1 hr 50 min
Seeds 15

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by FilmFlaneur

Not the best Sabu but still worth seeing

This film was Sabu's second, and shows many of this auteur's characteristic hallmarks: a concern with drastically ironic coincidences and misunderstandings, effective staging and a striking disregard for naturalism being chief amongst them. It was also the first time that the director used the excellent actor Shinichi Tsutsumi as his leading man. The actor was to reappear very effectively in Monday, Drive, and Unlucky Monday, his stoic face a perfect foil to the director-screenwriter's often bleak view of fate and predations of satirised Yakuza. Tsitsumi's keatonesque presence, and his various misfortunes, increasingly provide the centerpieces to Sabu's films. The weakness of Postman's Blues, to some extent, can be traced back to the fact that the dirctor has not yet found way to situate his hero best at the heart of an ironic narrative.Most of the present film's confusions take place outside of the hero's ken. Until the end, he remains unaware and is largely unaffected by the game fate is playing with his life. It creates a dissipation of effect, and despite a number of marvellous scenes, it is noticable that the most effective of them (the initial passing of the severed finger into his mailbag, his delivery of the same to the Yakuza boss; some hospital scenes and so on) directly involve Ryuichi. Away from him, the film seems to have no heart: the humour occasionally seems forced, as in the case of the Olympic cyclist sequence, and events loses focus. Sabu has not made this mistake again, and in succeeding features his leading man is conscious of the events being set in motion – an awareness adding immensely to the ironic pathos of his adventures.For a the best introduction to the crazy world of Sabu, which often reminds one of Jacques Tati writing a Fritz Lang movie, the interested viewer should seek out the marvellous Monday. Having said that, existing admirers of the director – who surely deserves a wider reputation than he has – should see this, as Sabu's misfires are twice as interesting as most other director's successes.
Reviewed by JohnSeal 8 / 10

Hard to pigeonhole action-comedy-fantasy

Postman Blues doesn't fit neatly into any category, but whatever it is, it's terrific. Sawaki is a rather clueless mailman who gets mixed up with yakuza and as a result ends up being targeted by some equally clueless police who are convinced he's a runner for the mob. There are some terrific bicycling scenes including the ending, which plays like a demented western on wheels...without descending to cartoon territory. The romantic subplot is refreshing and the sudden intrusion of fantasy at the very end seems perfectly natural. Director Sabu (Hiroyuki Tanaka) looks to be a major new talent.
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