Suzhou River

Director: Ye Lou

2000 / 83min / DCP

Taking its name from the polluted river that flows through Shanghai, director Lou’s hometown, the brooding Suzhou River uses the singular first-person perspective of its unseen videographer-narrator to explore the grubby underbelly of the city, observing the story of an unsuspecting motorcycle courier who finds himself snared in a kidnapping plot and murder rap. A seductive, intricately structured stylistic coup from the sixth generation filmmaker, drawing on influences from film noir to Vertigo while developing its own idiosyncratic and haunting visual vocabulary.

New 4K restoration supervised by Lou Ye himself from the original 16mm A-B negative of the image.