Chinese Box

(TriMark)

Wayne Wang's salute to his home town stars Jeremy Irons as a Western journalist in Hong Kong who discovers that he's dying of leukemia. The film hangs on Irons's dislocation as he bounces among women (Gong Li as the nightclub hostess he's loved from afar; Maggie Cheung as the street hustler he becomes infatuated with), cultures, and classes; it's a tragic romance that flirts with but never quite makes a political statement.