Suzhou River

A faceless, nameless videographer tells a love story set in Shanghai. Mardar is a motorcycle courier, Moudan is a young woman whose father has hired him to drive her around. They fall in love. When Mardar takes part in a plot to kidnap Moudan, she throws herself into the Suzhou River. Years later, Mardar thinks he recognizes his lost love in the person of Meimei, the girlfriend of the video narrator, who performs as a mermaid in a nightclub… Shot on coarse-grain 16mm stock, the film is a captivating Chinese variation on the neo-noir trend. At the same time, it draws a portrait of a generation that had been uprooted, shifting between neo-realistic urban images that capture Shanghai in a radical state of flux, and night-time passages that conjure up the alternative sub-culture. Director Lou Ye thus creates a cinematic puzzle of illusion and reality, all the while chronicling a wonderfully tragic love story.