SUSU

Film Review by FIORE

SUSU, a new independent thriller, is a blend of PSYCHO and CHINATOWN. However, it does not attain the standards of those films.  A combined effort of British and Chinese filmmakers, SUSU moves slower than the 80 year old blue hair blocking the cereal aisle at Giant Eagle.  Generally, Chinese thrillers are paced well, while British thrillers drag.  In this collective endeavor, I suppose the British influence dominated.  Pity.

The movie demonstrates several cinematic successes. Director of Photography Jun Keung Cheung shot SUSU in authentic Gothic style.  Framing and lighting supplement the old English mansion, Charlie Chaplin’s home, serving as the film’s primary set.  Editor Yixi Sun utilizes a series of quick sequences, ending in long fades to black in the beginning of the film to set the premise and principle characters, and in the conclusion to clarify the climax.  The technique is effective and may have helped the pacing if incorporated throughout act two.  In true Indie style, Sun is the film’s writer and director as well as editor.

Two Chinese girlfriends and students are offered a weekend position to catalogue and translate a collection of Chinese films from Kungu Opera Star, Susu.  She married into a wealthy British family, and now, some twenty years after her death, a book and revival of her work is planned.  Susu is played by Junjie Mao, and the two girls, Qi’an and Aimo, are played by Zitong Wu and Lin Zhu, respectively.

As soon as the girls arrive at the mansion, it is obvious something is amiss.  When Shirley opens the door, one immediately envisions Austin Powers screaming:  “That’s a man, baby!”  Shirley is played by Steve Edwin.  How the girls do not notice the drag queen can only be the result of raising children in an all too politically correct environment.

Laura June Hudson (another of the dreaded three name people – quite common in Britain) plays Margaret, the caretaker of the Stuart mansion.  She is older than the rest of the cast combined, yet somehow spry enough to be as effective as Alfred is to Wayne Manor.  Tom Mannion is Dirk Cain, the eccentric neighbor who attempts to warn the girls of the danger they are in; and Fred Szkoda is Ben, the heir apparent to the mansion and the heartthrob seducing the girls to extend their stay.  The cast performs well, with Mannion and Hudson strong standouts.

All the elements for a solid thriller are in place, but the film moves too slowly for them to be effective.  Toss in several continuity errors and what could have been an effective thriller, develops to an insomnia cure.