Along the banks of the Suzhou River, which winds precariously through Shanghai, Marda (Jia Hongshen) falls in love with a dramatically beautiful young woman named Moudan (Zhou Xun). When he tries to kidnap her in order to demand ransom money from her rich father, she escapes him, jumping in to the river and disappearing forever. Marda serves a three-year jail sentence for his attempted crime. Upon his release, he meets a woman that looks exactly like Moudan, named MeiMei (also played by Zhou Xun).

An exciting, action-filled mystery suspense movie, director Lou Ye’s SUZHOU RIVER shares many thematic and stylistic elements with Alfred Hitchcock’s VERTIGO.

““It’s hard not to be swept up by the strong current of Suzhou River: a seductive and atmospheric conundrum that works pleasingly as an exercise in storytelling.” –Lizzie Francke, Sight and Sound

“As much about style as about love, Suzhou River echoes a lot of films, from the Hong Kong style of Wong Kar-Wai to Kieslowski’s The Double Life of Veronique, but the sum total is something with a freshness of its own.” –Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Time

““The film has… the appeal of being, without doubt, the first feature film of the young cinema of continental China to resort to such assertive stylistic choices.” –Jean-Michel Frodon, Le Monde