Splash!

>> Mermaid love story Suzhou River rides high on the Chinese new wave

by JOANNE LATIMER

Suzhou River is a gritty love story about a mermaid--as improbable as that sounds. She has a land-locked doppelgaenger, or she's leading a double life as a go-go dancer. It's all a little confusing, but don't let that stop you from seeing Suzhou River. It's the much-anticipated first feature from Lou Ye, a leader in China's new sixth generation filmmaking movement, and it shames previous attempts at playing the siren card.

Suzhou River couldn't be more next-generation. There is nothing epic, historic, stoic or spare involved. Sly critiques of official Chinese culture have been forsaken for present-day Shanghai. This tale of betrayal comes to us through the lens of an off-screen videographer--one with the shakes. He falls for a go-go dancer named Meimei who does a mermaid act in an aquarium.

One day, a motorcycle courier approaches our videographer in a bar with a story that throws Meimei's identity into question. Is she really Moudan, the missing daughter of a wealthy Vodka importer?

It's easy to see why the videographer, the motorcycle courier and the film director are so in love with Meimei, played by Zhou Xun. She's adorable. If her free spirit and little-girl charm don't win over audiences, there are always the slow scenes of her undressing. Her clothes, her makeup and virtually every scene of this film are colour-conscious in a way that makes it hard to look away for fear of missing a nice shot. Even a bare light bulb is beautiful.

Despite the clichéd signposts of the film's indie status (read: smoking, tattoos, leather, drunken vandalism, the aforementioned light bulb), Suzhou River is about more than posing. Moudan's betrayal by her lover, the courier, triggers a series of events that leaves "Meimei" wondering about her videographer. What if she went missing? "Would you look for me?" she asks, in her DarrylHannah-like wig from Splash, "Forever?"

Suzhou River carries the burden of being the debut film for one of China's first independent film production companies, Dream Factory. It's a promising calling card. The story leaves plenty of room for a sequel and that isn't the groan-inducing news that it could be. How often can you look forward to a movie sequel involving a mermaid?

Suzhou River opens Friday, Jan. 12 at Cinéma du Parc (with English subtitles) and Ex-Centris (with French subtitles)