A devoted postie roams mountain roads with his skinny horse, delivering mail for the village residents. It is a simple picture but one that constitutes paradise for director Yu Zhong. Based on the true story of Wang Shunyou - granted the honorific title of one of 10 people who have moved China -- Yu's film A Postman of Paradise is a story that has audiences in tears. It is set in an exquisite mountain region of southwest China, where people still lead a minimal life based on traditional virtues that have been untouched for centuries.

To capture Wang's touching stories, the filmmaking team followed in his footsteps. Actor Qiu Lin, who stars as Wang, was able to experience his tough work and the simple pleasure he found on the road.

"You can talk to nobody but a horse and you can see nothing but mountains and forest," said Qiu, who has starred in Zhang Yimou's Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles. "When night falls, it is very tranquil in the mountains. It is so dark that you can't see your hand in front of your face. There's the sound of the wind whistling and water trickling, and the howling of wolves."

Resting just two days per month, the film's protagonist Wang Dahe sets off with his horse, called Jinlong, and his clumsy mailbag. Over 20 years, he has trudged more than 260,000 kilometers of bumpy roads, equaling six round-world trips. Wang carries messages to the people and sometimes even volunteers to be the go-between. With a pure heart for serving others despite all obstacles, Wang has won the love and respect of the village folks.

Muli County, sitting at the outskirt of the southern Tibetan tableland in Liangshan Prefecture of Southwest China's Sichuan Province, is a mountainous county, with an average altitude of more than 3,100 meters. Due to the arduous valley and scattered villages, it is impossible to deliver mail by any other means except by foot.

Wang Shunyou, the real-life mailman on whom the film is based, said: "I'm on the post road 24 hours a day, 330 days a year. I'm happy when villagers and children greet me. The land-locked villagers have no access to modern telecommunications services. I am the bridge linking them with the outside world."

With an area of 13,200 square kilometers that is home to just 120,000 people, the county has a very low population density. Twenty-eight of the 29 townships are still inaccessible by road and have no telecommunications. The only way for local people to keep in touch with the outside world is through the "horseback mail route", which treks across mountains at altitudes above 4,000 meters.

Wang, of the Miao ethnic group, took up the job delivering mail, newspapers, magazines and other packages to these villages in 1985. Every month he has two shifts, each of which lasts 14 days. Along the mail route, he needs to pass over 5,000-metre-high Cha'erwa Mountain and then descend into the torrid Yalong River Valley.

Every year for two decades, he has delivered about 8,400 newspapers, 330 magazines, 840 letters and 600 parcels. The treks are always risky, but little, from snow and rain to landslides, has prevented him from doing his job.

Alcohol and singing kill the loneliness on the road, actor Qiu found. "That is Wang's 20 years life on the road. For most, his work is boring and hard but I can see his simple smile when he talks with his horse and delivers mails to others."

At the invitation of Edouard Dayan, director general of the International Bureau of UPU (Universal Postal Union), Wang made a speech at the annual session of Council of Administration held in Bern, Switzerland, marking the first such honor for a postman from the Chinese countryside.

A Postman of Paradise opens at cinemas citywide from September 12.

(China Daily 09/27/2007 page6)