Suzhou River was directed by Lou Ye, released in 2000 and it is his second film (the first was Weekend Lover in 1995). The reason given for the ban was that it was not properly approved by the Chinese authorities, rather than from any specific content.

Lou Ye is also barred from making any films for five years after showing a film Summer Palace, 2006) at an international film festival without official permission.

Suzhou River is not as openly controversial as Summer Palace, which draws on the Tiananmen Square uprising of 1989. Souzhou River is a love story or thriller which has been compared to Hitchcock's Vertigo in its story of a man's obsession with a woman, and with having the same actress play two (apparently) different people. The film looks at ideas of identity and self-awareness, which may have made it less popular with the authorities. Despite the ban in China, it has been very successful in other countries.