The Film Adaptation Of “Postmen In The Mountains”

“Postmen in the Mountains” is a movie that adapted by Siwu and directed by Jianqi Huo. It is a story about two postmen in the west of Hunan province, what happened during the journey is warm and touching. Although the story of postmen is not common in Chinese movies, “Postmen in the Mountains” have shown us the beautiful landscape of west Hunan. The movie is start from a postal road that is arduous and rough, via the angle of father and son it reveals the marvelous scenery of west Hunan and unaffected human relationship, including the traditional family relationship between father and son in china, and its’ humanism impresses audiences when they are feeling soft and beauty in it. “Postmen in the Mountains” is adapted from a short fiction of Janming Pong, it failed at the box office in china, but won successes in various film festivals around the world. Its box office in Japan is 800 million yen, which has reached new peak of Chinese movie art at that time. Film is a comprehensive art, the success of “Postmen in the Mountains” is not a coincidence, but a work of art that gathered the efforts from original article, director, screenwriter and other artists. This thesis takes the fiction and movie of “Postmen in the Mountains” as the research object, to analyze the challenge and choice of film adaptation by means of comparisons of the film and fiction.This thesis is divided into three parts: introduction, body and conclusion, of which body part is divided into four chapters.The introduction is not only a summary of relevant research on home and abroad, but also an explanation of research method and the value of research topic.Chapter one discussed the unique value of the fiction “Postmen In The Mountains” as a film story:It’s closely link of times, nationality and elements that suitable for film adaptation.Chapter two illustrates the key role of screenwriter in the film adaptation process because their choice and understanding of story affects the film on all sides. At the end of chapter four,it discusses how different adaptation principal influenced the movie style.Chapter three discusses the adaptation of characters and relationship at first, then clarifies the necessity of that from the angle of narrative strategies, and the dilemma of flashback because of that. At last, chapter three illustrates the rearrangement of story plot and analyzes its importance for the film adaptation.Chapter four is about how to express the story by the visual-audio language of film, and restore the artistic conception in the literature story. Besides, chapter four also illustrates how the film artists used light, shadow, music and sound to create special romantic poetry of film. At the end of chapter four, the thesis discusses how to represent the characters by the means of performance and costume design.The conclusion confirms the adaptation of “Postmen in the Mountains” is a success, and we could learn from it. In tend to provide enlightenment for the film adaptation in china, the thesis analyzes the adaptation form and adaptation strategy of this movie, as well as the film adaptation rules.