Task: Story Composition
Input (English): Fact1: camera serves as first-person perspective for audience, Fact2: living putting on blond wig and mermaid costume and swimming in large water tank at Happy Tavern, Fact3: videographer begins relating story of Mardar small-time crook and motorcycle courier and Moudan, Fact4: Mardar whom is hired to ferry around rich businessman town, Fact5: Moudan meets Meimei Happy Tavern
Output (English): The story follows the transient lives of four people at the margins of Chinese society. An anonymous videographer Hua Zhongkai opens the film with a monologue on the eponymous Suzhou River and love. As the films narrator, the videographer is nevertheless never seen aside from his hands, as the camera serves as his firstperson perspective for the audience. He starts by telling the story of a romance between himself and Meimei Zhou Xun, a performer at a dive bar in Shanghai. He discusses his love of Meimei, who makes a living putting on a blond wig and mermaid costume and swimming in a large water tank at the Happy Tavern, and who disappears days at a time, leaving him heartbroken each time. The videographer then begins relating the story of Mardar Jia Hongsheng, a smalltime crook and motorcycle courier, and Moudan Zhou Xun, the daughter of a rich businessman, whom Mardar is hired to ferry around town whenever Moudans father brings home one of his mistresses. During their brief encounters on his motorcycle, Mardar and Moudan fall in love. Unbeknownst to Moudan, however, Mardar has become involved in a kidnapping scheme with his former lover Xiao Ho Nai An, and the criminal Lao B Yao Anlian. Mardar is ordered by XiaoHo and Lao B to take Moudan to an abandoned warehouse while they orchestrate a pickup of the ransom money. The kidnapping goes awry when Lao B betrays and murders Xiao Ho as soon as the money is in hand. Mardar, unaware of these developments, prepares to move the girl when she asks him how much her ransom was. Mardar answers 450,000 RMB. Am I so cheap? she screams and runs away. Mardar chases after her only to see her jump into the Suzhou River, apparently to her death. Mardar is then arrested and imprisoned. Moudans body, however, is never found. Years later, Mardar returns to Shanghai and resumes his work as a courier, all the while still looking for Moudan. One night, he happens upon the Happy Tavern where he meets Meimei, the videographers elusive girlfriend. Mardar, convinced shes his lost love, first spies on her in her dressing room and then seeks out the videographer to tell his story. Later, Mardar tells Meimei herself about his affair with Moudan. Humoring him at first, she eventually becomes enamored with his story and takes him to bed. After being beaten one night by the owner of the Happy Tavern, Mardar heads out to the suburbs, where he discovers the real Moudan working in a convenience store. The film ends with the ambiguous death of both Mardar and Moudan, leaving the viewer to decide if it was an accident or suicide. The videographer and Meimei spend one more night together, before Meimei disappears again, leaving a note telling the videographer that if he truly loves her, as Mardar loved Moudan, he will find her.