Suzhou River 2000 DVDRip Sonata Premiere

Recalling both Vertigo (1958) and Chungking Express (1994), Chinese director Lou Ye spins this riveting tale of obsession and love. The film opens with shots of the Suzhou River, which is clogged with the detritus and pollution of a rapidly expanding Shanghai. The film focuses on motorcycle courier Mardar (Jia Hongsheng), who specializes in black marketeering and is asked by a shady alcohol smuggler to shuttle his young attractive daughter Moudan (Zhou Xun) to her Auntie's every day while he entertains hookers. Though at first the youth resists his precocious passenger's advances, the two soon fall for one another. In spite of this, Mardar reluctantly agrees with a group of sleazy associates to a scheme to kidnap Moudan and extract a ransom from her father. When Moudan learns of Mardar's betrayal, she runs away and throws herself in the river, apparently to her death. A few years later, Mardar is released after a stint in prison and returns to Shanghai. There, while working as a videographer, he encounters Meimei (also played by Zhou) a nightclub dancer who performs in an aquarium as a mermaid. At first, Meimei brushes off Mardar's advances, until he tells her of his sordid past. Soon the identities of the two women fuse in his increasingly fractured psyche. This film won the top prize at the Rotterdam Film Festival.