Suzhou River

A film by Lou Ye

A visually arresting tale of mystery and obsession set in the neon lit nightclubs and grimy industrial wastelands of Shanghai. The story is told by and shot directly from the point of view of the unseen narrator. He guides us through the streets, along the banks of the heavily polluted and industrialised Suzhou river, and we watch his girlfriend Meimei, whom he is obsessively filming, as she dresses and prepares to leave her riverside home. He tells us that Meimei has unexpected periods of sadness, often disappearing for days at a time without explanation. His own moments of sadness then turn to joy when he sees her return, walking over the bridge with her arms folded across her chest. He then begins to recount the story of Moudan and Mardar.

Mardar is a motorcycle courier working in the city. One of his clients, a shady businessman, regularly hires Mardar to drive his sixteen-year-old daughter, Moudan, to her aunt's house while he entertains his latest girlfriend at home. Moudan and Mardar grow fond of each other and a relationship develops. He gives her a mermaid doll as a birthday present. But then Mardar becomes entangled with a crime gang who force him to kidnap Moudan and demand ransom money from her rich father. She escapes from him outside the empty warehouse where she has been held, disappointed at his betrayal of her love and enraged by the small amount of ransom money he is due to receive in return. Moudan runs from him, and clutching the mermaid doll, throws herself off a bridge into the poisonous river, promising that one day she'll return as a mermaid.

Mardar serves a three-year jail sentence for his part in the crime, and still wracked with grief over Moudan's supposed death, eventually returns to Shanghai and to his work as a courier, whilst endlessly searching all over the city for Moudan. But no one has seen her or knows what happened to her because a body was never recovered. One night as he walks into a bar, Mardar encounters a girl who bears a striking resemblance to Moudan. He follows her to the nightclub where she works, performing an underwater mermaid act in a tank, and Mardar is convinced that the girl, Meimei, is his lost love.

The jerky handheld visuals, harsh lighting and stunning colours all bring a heightened sense of reality to the film, and we are drawn into the tragedy of Moudan and Mardar, the narrator's own part in the story, and the feelings that develop between Mardar and Meimei. An intriguing, captivating and beautiful love story, with a heartbreaking conclusion and an unexpected narrative twist bringing the plot full circle.