Uniform 2003

Wang Xiaojian is a down-and-out slacker in a small town in China’s industrial Shaanxi province. His father, a factory worker, has fallen ill, and prospects for the family look dim. Stuck working in his family’s tailoring and laundry shop, one day Xiaojian comes across the freshly laundered uniform of a police officer. Attempting to deliver it, he discovers that the police officer who the uniform was intended for has been injured and would not be back on the job for a few weeks. Wandering home, Xiaojian decides to try the uniform on.

Suddenly, Xiaojian’s life begins to turn around as people mistake him for a police officer, a mistake he quickly capitalizes on. Using the uniform, Xiaojian begins stopping motorists and bus drivers in order to shake them down for bribes to pay for his father’s medical expenses. What starts as a desperate scheme soon reveals a more troubling side of his choices, as the line between help and exploitation blurs. Less noble, he uses the uniform to begin wooing a pretty clerk, Zheng Shasha. As they begin seeing each other more regularly, however, it becomes clear that Xiaojian is not the only one living a double life, and the town itself starts to react to the growing tension between outward appearance and hidden truths.