In the new Vietnam, at the Apocalypse Now bar in Saigon, ex-GI James Hager (Harvey Keitel) searches for the daughter he left behind after the war. Outside, street kid Woody (Nguyen Huu Duoc) sells cheap souvenirs to the tourists who are changing the face of his country. Kien An (Nguyen Ngoc Hiep), a young girl who works for a leprous poet, picks lotus flowers that serve as a shimmering reminder of traditional Vietnamese beauty. Hai (Don Duong), a poor cyclo driver, enters a race that will help him afford a night with Lan (Zo' Bui), the prostitute he taxis to and from clients.

These are the stories that intersect in Three Seasons, the first American feature to be shot in Vietnam since the war — Keitel served as executive producer — and the first film to win both the Grand Jury prize and the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival. Three Seasons is also the first feature to be written and directed by Tony Bui, 26, who was two years old when his family fled Saigon for California. Bui was nineteen before he returned to his native land. Since then, he's been trying to make a film that would connect him to a country the rest of the world sees in terms of war.

Given that history, it would be gratifying to report that Three Seasons realizes all of Bui's ambitions. Sadly, it does not. The dramatic vignettes rarely rise above superficiality. But on a visual level — Lisa Rinzler's cinematography is truly lyrical — the film achieves wonders. In showing a transitional Vietnam caught between tradition and commerce, Bui uncovers his country's grieving heart.

“All Along the Watchtower”

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."