When I placed Lou Ye's "Suzhou He" (Suzhou River, the more-or-less open sewer that runs through Shanghai) on my list of the ten best movies of 2000, the only Wong Kai-War movie that I had seen was "Happy Together," which though having the look and the urban anomie, frustrated romanticism, and passive males of Wong's other movies had an all-male cast and was filmed in Argentina. Watching "Suzhou He" again, I see it as a Shanghaiese variation not only on Alfred Hitchcock's great "Vertigo" but on Wong's Hong Kong movies (especially Chungking Express and within that, especially to Brigitte Lin's blonde wig). "Suzhou He" is easier to follow than Wong's movies and has much blanker characters than those in "Vertigo." It has some of the non-psychological violence of Wong and like Wong's movies, protagonists substantially younger than Kim Novak and (especially!) James Stewart in "Vertigo."

Extensive regret-filled voice-over narration is a hallmark (though not a defining feature) of noirs and neo-noirs. While turning over precedents, I might as well also mention "Lady in the Lake" in that "Suzhou River" is told by a never-seen narrator, Li Jiquian (though not entirely seen by him as "Lady in the Lake" was through Robert Montgomery's Philip Marlowe).

The main story is not Li Jiquian's. It is, rather, that of a motorcycle messenger, Mardar (Jia Hongshen). One of Mardar's jobs is to transport Mou Dan (Zhou Xun, who has played the leading female roles in "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress," "Beijing Bicycle," "Perhaps Love") to her aunt's whenever his father shacks up with a new woman. Mou Dan looks childish with two pony-tails and is a peculiar mixture of willful and docile. She and Mardar start drinking together and riding around on his motorcycle—not just to transport her as he is paid to do. On her birthday, he gives her a mermaid doll.

The childish romance darkens when Mardar is ordered to get Mou Dan drunk and kidnap her. She is angered less by this than by the smallness of the ransom demanded. Clutching her mermaid doll, before she jumps into the river, she tells Mardar that she will return as a mermaid. (Do I need to remind anyone of Novak plunging into the waters of San Francisco Bay at Fort Point? If so, you need to watch or rewatch "Vertigo"!)

He goes off to prison for three years and there are various reported sightings of mermaids in the Suzhou.

He wanders into a bar that has a mermaid show. Mei-Mei (also played by Zhou Xun) performs in a tank in the bar, wearing a blonde wig, just like the mermaid doll. Mardar is convinced that he has found Mou Dan—or her reincarnation, if she dies and returned as a mermaid. (I realize that this sounds far-fetched, but she looks like Mou Dan with different hair and a lot more makeup.)

The intensity of his belief first annoys, then intrigues Mei-Mei (she is Li Jiquian's girlfriend). As in "Vertigo" (and most Wong movies!), things do not work out to anyone's satisfaction. Much is lost.

This all unfolds in 83 minutes in which there is time for many shots of the ugliness of the city. (Like Wong's Hong Kong, Lou's Shanghai is remarkably empty of people, though both are — in reality — metropolises teeming with dense populations. And, as in the movies of Wong and Tsai, there is some very heavy rainfall.

The music by Jorg Lemberg gets very Bernard Hermmanish (Vertigo) when Mardar first sees Mei-Mei in the tank. The color scheme, in contrast, is Wong, not Hitchcock, with a strong emphasis on sickly green backgrounds (painted; I don't recall seeing any grass in the movie). And the ever-moving hand-held camera is also very Wong and very unlike Hitchcock's carefully planned compositions. (It was not really a choice, since the movie was shot illicitly.)

Mardar does not make much attempt to remake Mei-Mei in Mou Dan's image (especially in comparison with the obsessiveness with which James Stewart transforms the second Kim Novak into the image of the first). He mostly looks sadly yearning (in the Tony Leung manner), and Li Jiquian is never seen. Playing two willful characters (both disappointed by their men), Zhou Xun has a clear field to dominate the movie, whether she is a ghost or reincarnation or just someone who looks like the disappeared Mou Dan.

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I have not seen any other movies directed by Lou Ye. Lou was banned by the PRC autocrats from making movies for two years, having not had official permission to shoot "Suzhou River."

The Strand DVD has no bonus features, alas.

There is some graphic violence. No nudity: it was shot—even if illegally—in the PRC!

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Aside from having been released in 2000, the criterion for Bryan's 2000 writeoff, there is not a whole lot in the movie that relates to my image of him—except that the characters frequently drink beer. (Li Jiquian and Mou Dan also put away quite a bit of vodka; they drink it from the bottle, but the beer from glasses.)

Be that as it may, congratulations to Bryan for his steady stream of thoughtful reviews and cheers!

© 2006, Stephen O. Murray





Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age