AllMovie

Suzhou River's first twenty minutes or so crackles with the sort of hallucinogenic neorealism that made Chungking Express and Cyclo two of the most interesting films of the 1990s. Director Lou Ye belongs to the loosely formed Sixth Generation of Chinese filmmakers. Unlike their Fifth Generation brethren such as Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou, who made their names by recreating a series of acclaimed works set in the exotic hinterland or the exotic past, Lou Ye and his ilk create works that deal with personal matters set in the grime and muck of modern-day metropolises. Suzhou feels most at home when presenting the gritty side of Shanghai, as it does in its first reel. Then the plot kicks in and the film's magic quickly evaporates, leaving a lumbering beast of a story in its stead. Mixing warmed-over Hitchcock and Wong Kar-wai trademarks into the work, the film never quite gels. Some parts of Lou Ye's inventive, if flawed, script -- such as the film's clever doppelganger imagery -- work. Others -- like the first-person point of view given to the videographer/narrator -- do not. Lead actress Zhou Xun effortlessly morphs from a wide-eyed schoolgirl to a jaded femme fatale. Oozing with promise, Suzhou River never quite develops into the potboiler or existential meditation that it hopes to become.