China auteur tests the limits

HE'S the director who gives Chinese film watchdogs nightmares with his realistically edgy and gritty movies but mainland auteur Lou Ye doesn't fancy being called controversial. "I don't like being labelled; for me, filmmaking is not a tool to achieve anything, I make films only because I love it," states the 49-year-old who spearheaded the indie wave of Chinese directors during the 1990s.

Many of his early works remain banned in his homeland till this day. One of them - his breakthrough sophomore effort, Suzhou River (2000) - will be revisited next week as part of the seventh edition of the annual Perspectives Film Festival.

Organised by students of Nanyang Technological University, this year's theme is displacement; with all seven films in the line-up featuring…