Review:

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 1998, at the age of 40, with the release of the impressive, heart-warming, small-budget production "Postman in the Mountains (Nashan, Naren, Nagou)."

Huo Jianqi's films are less about plot and more about visual impact. His personal aesthetic was boldly stated in one of his best-known works, Nashan Naren Nagou, or 'Postman in the Mountains'. An art director before making films of his own, he is an expert at using color and atmosphere to set the mood and convey information that is never directly spelled out through the dialogue of his films. And he is at his best when portraying subtle relationships that develop and change through seemingly unimportant events.

Inspired by the unprecedented box office success of Zhang Yimou's "Yingxiong (Hero)," many Chinese filmmakers are now focused on producing market-oriented blockbusters.

But Huo Jianqi isn't one of them. In fact, he seems doing exactly the opposite.

Skillfully shot, a film which is emblematic of nostalgia for youth and lost innocence. After a ten year absence, Lin Jinghe returns to his birthplace where he has a chance but feared meeting with a young girl, Nuan, bringing back a whole chain of painful and intense memories. This encounter also triggers a feeling of regret for that which could have been, but never actually was. Nuan, a beautiful girl, is perversely innocent yet uneasy and emotional, the one who everyone was in love with and jealous of. It seemed as if she had the world at her feet, but she is still there in that little village. She seems to have given up any hope for the future.