COURTESY ALMOST ENTERTTAINMENT PRODUCTIONS

Tarantino derivative
from China shines in
acting but plods in plot

"The Green Hat" Playing at 5:30 p.m. tomorrow and 7:30 p.m. Tuesday

So love's a bitch. Alejandro Gonz‡lez I–‡rritu already made that abundantly clear in the trio of stories that comprise "Amores Perros," the best film made about a subject for which there are as many stories as there are comatose relationships. Can you stand two more?

There's nothing about Liu Sen Dou's "The Green Hat" that's original, although a blurb in the Cinema Paradise program suggests its sexual candor is "noteworthy" for a film out of China, a back-handed compliment at best.

It seems like the entire plot was built around the arrival of Viagra in a country that has a long-standing traditional market for so-called aphrodisiacs such as rhino horn and bear gall bladder.

The film is pure male angst and adolescent revenge fantasy, which for female viewers adds up to a guy flick, but for guys is too plodding and ponderous to satisfy. It has the feel of a novice attempt to piece together a Tarantino-esque film by numbers -- There's the time leap! There's the violence! -- letting the contrivances pile up.

It is somewhat difficult for someone from the culturally imperialist West, however, to fault a film out of context. Development in China and the apparent empowerment of women has led to the feelings of stress, detachment and male erectile dysfunction portrayed here. While all this is old hat in the west, the open dialog is new for China.

It doesn't matter how virile a man is in his public life if his love life is flagging. The green hat is a reference to a cuckold, a man whose lover or wife cheats on him, which was also the subject of the 1995 Hong Kong-made comedy, "Green Hat."

In Liu's film, early footage of the Mao years contrast the freedom of the present with the regimented past, and the film's characters seem to be at a loss as to dealing with their new freedom, sexual and otherwise. What's a man to do about a wayward woman?

The story opens with Wang Yao, who looks like a thuggish Bruce Lee, about to make the trip of a lifetime to America to join the woman he loves after two years apart. But there's one thing he has to do before he leaves, and that's rob a bank. So in he goes with his two buddies, guns blazing.

They get away, but en route to the airport, Wang gets a page from the girlfriend that he must, must, must return. He's in love, you see.

Well, she's picked a fine time to let him know she won't be meeting him at the airport, won't be meeting him at all for that matter because she's met another guy. In fact, she tells him not to bother looking for her because she's moving to another state.

WITH NOTHING left to live for, Wang pulls his gun on the woman whose phone he's using and pretty soon, police are called to this hostage crisis that leads to a stand-off in the streets. One brave cop steps forward to calm Wang, who puts the gun to the officer's head and offers him a chance to live if -- before the count of three -- he answers the question, "What is love?"

Answer No. 2 is "I forgot," and, along with the unexplained bruise on the officer's forehead, you have the setup for story No. 2.

The film is violent, with several tense moments, but bloodshed generally takes place in blacked out scenes, as in silent films, or is represented by sound and visual cues, as when one of the bank robbers is stopped at a roadblock.

Story No. 2 opens with promise because of the cop's stoic, reflective nature, that contrasts with the reckless youths, but his story adds up to little more than a tedious, masturbatory exploration of seven-year itch, mid-life crisis clichŽs. And for a film that bills itself as being about love, there's no love in it, just infatuation and lust. Women are two-dimensional possessions, which is probably why these guys are having so much trouble.

In spite of the stories' weakness, the acting is good and the cinematography is first rate. The film has won accolades from the New York Tribeca Film Festival, having won "Best Narrative" and "Best New Narrative Filmmaker" awards for Liu, who does show promise and may be having the last laugh as he sells his version of the Western art film back to us, an idea presented in an early beach scene.

In spite of the frustration felt while sitting through the film, Liu nevertheless succeeds in getting the viewer to think about the characters long after the final scene, even if you're just asking yourself, "Is that all?"