Postman Blues

1997, 110 min., 35 mm, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. Directed by Sabu. With Shinichi Tsutsumi, Keisuke Horibe, Ren Osugi, Keiko Toyama. Print courtesy of The Japan Foundation.

Introduction and Q&A with director Sabu.

"A funny, inventive and winning charmer from start to finish."
–Tom Mes, Midnight Eye

"The most flat-out fun Wrong Man scenarios in Japanese film."
–Gabe Klinger, Senses of Cinema

In this wacky comedic thrill ride, both a superb parody of the gangster genre and a masterful exercise in style and storytelling, Sawaki (Shinichi Tsutsumi) is an ordinary postman whose unassuming life takes a strange turn when he crosses paths with his old high school buddy Noguchi (Keisuke Horibe), now a low-level yakuza drug mule, just as he finishes cutting off his finger as an apology to his boss. Unbeknownst to both men, Noguchi’s freshly chopped-off pinky rolls off the table and into Sawaki’s mailbag. Soon, the chance encounter and the missing pinky land the postman in hot water when the police mistakenly identify him as a schizophrenic-paranoid drug dealer, sadistic murderer and terrorist working for the yakuza. Things get a tad more problematic when the unwitting postman befriends two terminal cancer patients: a lone hitman called Joe (Ren Osugi) and a pretty woman named Sayoko (Keiko Toyama).

Part of the series: Run, Salaryman, Run! A Retrospective of Sabu’s Film Works.

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