Uniform

Synopsis

The directorial debut of Yinan Diao (writer of the acclaimed comedy drama SHOWER), UNIFORM is a taut thriller that exposes the corrupting influence of poverty in contemporary China.

With the local factory closed and his ailing father unemployed street tailor Xiao Jian finds himself unable to pay his family's bills. When a laundered police-officer's shirt remains uncollected, he decides to play the role of cop, with unexpected results. Extorting payments from drivers who break minor traffic laws, attracting the attention of a young woman who works in a CD store and suddenly becoming visible to the world at large, Xiao Jian also discovers the terrible cost of leading such a precarious double life.

One of the defining films of the Chinese Sixth Generation, UNIFORM deftly balances social comment with an intimate character study of a man desperate enough to risk everything in order to escape the life in which he is trapped.

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Reviews

"An edge of wry humour... Diao has a fine, surrealist eye for visual incongruities"

TIME OUT

"beautifully observed... great performances"

LONDON FILM FESTIVAL

"deceptively simple... filled with sly humour"

THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK

"Expertly, sensitively directed"

SENSES OF CINEMA

"poignant, minimalist work, whose pristine video images lodge a passionate protest against social dissolution in modern China... intoxicating... a triumph"

PHILADELPHIA CITY PAPER