Product Description

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Media Type: DVD
Artist: SUZHOU RIVER
Title: SUZHOU RIVER
Street Release Date: 10/23/2001
Domestic
Genre: ALTERNATIVE LIFESTYLE

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #41987 in DVD
• Brand: SUZHOU RIVER
• Released on: 2001-10-16
• Rating: Unrated
• Formats: Color, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: Cantonese
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 83 minutes

Customer Reviews

One of the Best Movies in a Long While, but overlooked!
Having followed Mainland Chinese cinema for sometime, I was very eager to view "Suzhou River." I finally did see it, renting it through one of the local Chinese video stores in the area. After the first viewing, I was completely blown away! I was totally mesmerized by the story, the setting, and the characters. If only America could produce such quality movies!

The main plotline revolves around a videographer, a motorcycle courier, and two different young women (who could possibly be the same person). That's all I'll say without revealing any more information...

Many have dubbed this a "Chinese Vertigo," but I feel this in incorrect. The two movies do share some similarities, but they are still different. "Suzhou River" is not exactly like Hitchcock's "Vertigo"; it contains so much more, and for me had much of a greater emotional impact. (Of course being able to understand Mandarin Chinese does help.)

The acting is superb and the story, great. It is very believable as in this could possibly happen in real life. Especially magnificent is the radiant Zhou Xun's performance. An artistically well done film with interesting story telling and Wong Kar-Wai style cinematography that is a must see. It's a shame that people have missed out and overlooked this complex and moving gem of a movie.

Certainly, one of the best movies in the long time, and so much better than almost everything Hollywood is producing these days. Please go out and buy it. You will not be let down.

a dreamy gem for hopeless romantics
This film gets compared a lot to Wong Kar-Wai's Chungking Express. Admittedly, the parallels are there but Suzhou River has a more doomed, fatalistic tone than Wong's film.

Suzhou River really gets under your skin if you become captivated by the fascinating relationship between two people that seems to be determined by fate.

The director creates a captivating mood and atmosphere and that is what really draws you in -- as does the heartbreaking performances of the two leads.

This is a really underrated film that deserves more attention and wider distribution. If you're a fan of Hong Kong films in the same style as Wong Kar-Wai then chances are you'll probably really like this movie as well.

Haunting
This movie also reminds me of Wong Kar Wai's work but it is more gritty, more quirky, and darker. Like Wong Kar Wai's films it manages to touch a place somewhere in between reality and fantasy that probably most of us have visited at some time but find difficult to express. Some of the shots and sequences while appearing rough, spontaneous and improvised are genuinely striking and even often beautiful. The cameos of life on the river and oblique suggestiveness of the mermaid sightings are brilliantly done. The film sucks you into a story where reality and fantasy intertwine with a sense of ultimate futility, helped by the alternately gamine and broody Zhu Xun. I have seen it twice and will probably see it several more times. It is difficult to forget a film like this.