Three Seasons

(USA Home Entertainment)

Tony Bui's lyrical quartet of languidly interlinked tales set in modern-day Ho Chi Minh City (the former Saigon) settles for platitudes rather than politics. Hai (Don Duong) is a long-suffering pedicab driver who falls in love with snooty fare/prostitute Lan (Zoë Bui). James Hager (a wooden Harvey Keitel) is a Marine vet searching for his long-lost daughter who bumps into Woody (Nguyen Huu Duoc), a street urchin selling war-vintage Zippo lighters, and finally into Kien An (Nguyen Ngoc Hiep), a young flower seller with her own tale to tell. Bui's film is periodically poetic and engaging, but 25 years later and 12,000 miles away, it hardly seems worth the long trip back.