The basic storyline of Postman to Heaven is compelling in it's way, but it starts off really slow and isn't helped much by sub-par writing. For the first ten minutes of the film, I honestly felt like I was watching Korea's version of a Lifetime movie and I seriosuly considered walking away. But cheesy lines are much easier to swallow when they're uttered in a beautiful foreign language and you're reading the subtitles and hoping the translation is what's making the characters sound so chiche. I forced myself to get past the first 20 minutes and I was quickly hooked. The postman, Shin Jae Joon, is portrayed by K-pop singer Kim 'Hero' Jaejoong in his first ever acting debut and co-staring with him is Han Hyo Joo who plays a girl by the name of Jo Ha Na. Jae Joon and Ha Na meet in a lush green field where Ha Na has come to mail a letter to her dead ex-boyfriend. She discovers Jae Joon removing all the letters out of a red mailbox where people have come to send mail to those who have passed on before them. Curiosity and anger about Jae Joon's removal of the letters forms the foundation for the couple's blossoming friendship. What happens from here is a complicated, sometimes disjointed storyline where Jae Joon enlists Ha Na to help him in answering the letters in curious and unusual ways, and, well, you can only guess what happens from there.
Ha Na as a character is a bit difficult to stomach in the beginning. She's whiny and fully of classic Korean aegyo while Jae Joon is sullen and all serious with his hair always in his eyes and his wearing all black all the time. What saved Ha Na for me was that it was visually really fun to watch her frolicking around empty fields and adorable Tahitian coffee shops in lacy skirts, leather boots and long flowing scarves. Fair warning: by the end of this film, you too will want to frolic around an overgrown field while wearing a lacy skirt and a long flowing scarf. Visually, I couldn't be as entertained by Jae Joon as I was by Ha Na and perhaps this was because I'm still not entirely comfortable with the super-skinny, lots of chest-area-showing fashion statements made by the majority of K-pop artists. Call me crazy, that's just how it is. However, when Jae Joon put on some clothes, and a peacoat, and a scarf, and some glasses for the final scene of the film, I did in fact gasp in sheer delight.
At the beginning of this review I noted that what made this film for me was it's photographic cinematography. Postman to Heaven is shot in a muted, natural colour sceme and most of the film takes place either in a grassy field or in one of many little coffeeshops. The feel of the movie reminded me of film photography. The cinematographer employs shallow depth of field throughout the film as a way to focus on particular moments and feelings by putting everything but the character who is speaking out of focus. I liked this method. I also liked how much time the characters spent in coffeeshops, photography studios and the post office. Basically, every conversation that took place in this movie was over a cup of coffee and there were so many close-ups of various brew-methods that my barista-self was squealing with delight at Korea's beloved coffee culture.
The only confusing part about the cinematography was a red cherry necklace worn by Ha Na for different, disconnected parts of the movie. Although Ha Na is always wearing many, many layers, the red necklace stands out quite a bit because her colours are always natural/beige/off-white. I was trying to figure out the significance of the necklace, but I couldn't, and what made it more frustrating was the fact that it just showed up again halfway through the movie, halfway through a scene! Jae Joon wears a trademark necklace in the film as well, but the symbolism for his necklace and his colour-sceme is obvious, Ha Na's red cherry necklace is not. I thought the cherries were a random movie mistake at first, but she ended up wearing the necklace for most of the second half of the movie and in a few scenes she's seen fidgeting with it. I can't quite figure out if there's some significance that I didn't fully catch. If you know, please tell me.
Postman to Heaven is a touching movie for anyone who has ever lost a loved one, but beware, it is a bit heavy at times. It's full of little sub-stories and intimate moments that literally had me tearing up from beginning to end. To be honest, I actually paused the film quite a bit to made coffee/go outside/ walk around, so it might have had an even greater impact on me if I had watched it all in one sitting.
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