SUZHOU RIVER

SUZHOU RIVER (2000) **

Reviewed 3/25/00

Suzhou River seems so derivative of Vertigo that it is shocking to hear director Lou Ye had not seen the Hitchcock film prior to Suzhou River's debut at the Rotterdam Film Festival. There's even a dialogue reference to a rooftop chase involving cops and a crook. Okay, the setting is in Shanghai instead of San Francisco, the criminal element resides on the man's side instead of the woman's, and the ending has a different twist, but the similarities in plot are so keen that Vertigo is never far from mind. The problem is River suffers in comparison. It is plagued by four primary problems: a very self-conscious, forced Lady of the Lake first person perspective that is the first 10-15 minutes of the film; constant voice-over narration that tells you everything that is going on without letting the images speak for themselves; the man obsessed (Jia Hongsheng) is so stoic that his passion for the possibly dead woman (Zhou Xun) never comes across believably; and pretentious dialogue that sounds like a French art film satire. Zhou's Lolita-like performance does elicit a greater obsession quotient than Kim Novak's, but it isn't enough to overcome River's incidental derivativeness. Credit must be given to cinematographer Wang Yu for at least making the whole enterprise look truly sumptuous.

Strand Releasing will open Suzhou River in the U.S. in November.