kristenal17
i really really like this film, its so surreal yet it is set in the realistic city of shanghai..... i fell in love of it the first time i saw it. the story is so romantic yet so bleak about the idealisms of love...... i seriously couldn't go to sleep after watching that film...it makes me want to find a guy like Ma Da to fall in love with yet i dont want my love story to end up like theirs. so yeh if i was the camera dude, i would close my eyes and wait for the next when love arrives.the girl who plays peony is great, because she can differentiate her characters so well.
Bigprisc
This is a wonderful movie. I am most taken with Zhou Xun (Meimei/Moudan). She played both roles impressively by giving each of them a character that is totally different from the other. Never once allowing the audience to believe that other than the looks (and the mermaid), nothing else about them is the same.Other then that... everything else about 'Vertigo' and stuff were mentioned by the others, so i shall not go into that.Great movie. One of my faves of all time.
jharford-1
The action of this film is so slow that I couldn't help being disturbed by the popcorn muncher behind me two rows back. But, I've been thinking about it for days. It's images are nowhere as near as beautiful, but it reminded most of Ingmar Bergman's "Cries and Whispers". The scenes are so sparse that you can't help but to focus on the simplest of details on the screen...a roll of toilet paper on a bed and each passing character all get connected to the story line by the films end. And even though there is ample reason to connect the filthy river to the source of the main characters problem it is clear that the river that the title is describing to is the vast population of disconnected people that haven't a clue what is happening to them.
zetes
Suzhou River's beginning represents an extremely compelling film. It has it all - a great narrative, great acting, great score, and it is emotionally involving. But the director/screenwriter throws it all away when he decides simply to revert back to Sir Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. Vertigo is one of those films that is impossible to top, so it is just a waste of time to try.
Here is my experience during Suzhou River, after having enjoyed the first 30 minutes or so immensely: I hear the score sampling Bernard Herrmann's Vertiginous theme, and see the camera quoting the film, and my mind immediately jumped back on my dreamlike memories of Vertigo. It's as if Suzhou River disappeared. Near the end, the film started to become a little more original, and my daydreams faded, but I was pretty lost at that point.Don't get me wrong. Suzhou River is still a fine film. I would actually like someone to remake most of it, taking out the Vertigo homage and inserting something more original. 7/10
AD
