UNIFORM (2003)
A film by Yinan Diao
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 enoug