Suzhou River

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the Chinese river, see Suzhou Creek.
Suzhou River

The French poster for Suzhou River - "River of Love"
Directed by Lou Ye
Produced by Philippe Bober
Nai An
Written by Lou Ye
Starring Zhou Xun
Jia Hongsheng
Music by Jörg Lemberg
Cinematography Wang Yu
Editing by Karl Riedl
Distributed by United States:
Strand Releasing
United Kingdom:
Artificial Eye
Release date(s) Rotterdam:
January 29, 2000
Hong Kong:
September 7, 2000
United States:
November 8, 2000
Running time 83 min.
Language Mandarin
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile
Chinese name
Simplified Chinese: 苏州河
Traditional Chinese: 蘇州河
Pinyin: Sūzhōu hé

Suzhou River is a 2000 film noir by Lou Ye about a tragic love story set in contemporary Shanghai. The film is typical of "Sixth Generation" Chinese filmmakers in its subject matter and style.

Writer-director Lou Ye's second film, Suzhou River takes as its background the chaotically built-up riverside architecture of factory buildings and abandoned warehouses along the Suzhou River, rather than the glitzy new face of Shanghai.

Contents

[edit] Plot outline

The story follows the transient lives of four people at the margins of Chinese society. An anonymous videographer follows the story of Mardar (Jia Hongsheng), a small-time crook and motorcycle courier; and Moudan (Zhou Xun), the daughter of a rich businessman, whom Mardar is hired to ferry around town. Mardar and Moudan fall in love but when Mardar gets involved in a botched attempt to kidnap her, Moudan flees. Devastated, Mardar searches for her, and catches sight of the identical Meimei, the videographer's elusive girlfriend (also played by Zhou Xun). Mardar becomes convinced she's his lost love, but eventually finds Moudan. The movie ends with the ambiguous death of both Mardar and Moudan, leaving the viewer to decide if it was an accident or suicide.

[edit] Analysis

Building the narrative from chance encounters and interconnected lives, Lou hints toward Wong Kar-wai's Chungking Express. Stylistically the film also owes something to Wong's restless visual sensibility: jump cuts abound and director of photography Wang Yu's dextrous handheld camerawork snakes like the river itself. One of the most memorable images in the film is that of Moudan dressed as a mermaid, bathed in a pool of warm golden light, her tail sunk in the murky waters of the Suzhou. Lou's decision to use the figure of the mermaid - which is not part of Chinese folklore - is characteristic of the global outlook of his sixth generation film-making contemporaries.

Similarly he markedly embraces what was presumably illicit cinema history by what most critics and scholars have seen as paying a clear stylistic debt to Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo.[1][2][3] The river, the bridge, the obsessive, haunted protagonist and the girl who might not be quite who she seems: this shares elements that have figured in countless movies inspired by Hitchcock's 1958 masterpiece.

[edit] Awards & nominations

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Suzhou River. Film Quarterly (Vol. 55, No. 2, 2001). Retrieved on 2007-04-12.
  2. ^ Film Festival Review; A Chill Scene for Shadowy Characters. New York Times (2000-03-25). Retrieved on 2007-02-23.
  3. ^ Think Global, Act Local. The Village Voice (2000-03-20). Retrieved on 2007-02-23.

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Films directed by Lou Ye
Weekend Lover (1995) • Suzhou River (2000) • Purple Butterfly (2004) • Summer Palace (2006)
v • d • e
Cinema of China
 This article related to Chinese film is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
Languages