Actor Lee Kang-sheng has been Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang’s muse for almost 20 years, starring in 10 of the latter’s brilliant, singular films. In 2003, Lee released his first film as a director, The Missing, an admirable if dullish effort that owed much to his mentor’s work. It’s an influence that’s tough to shake, and there’s still lots of Tsai in Lee’s latest, the tale of a suicidal, lovelorn pothead (Lee) obsessed with the grow op in his apartment and a betel nut vendor who works downstairs. The loose narrative, also involving a plump help-line operator, grows increasingly sexual and surreal—Taipei marijuana is apparently even stronger than B.C. bud—but its oddity feels a bit too overdetermined, undermining the more compelling heartbreak that drives it. (JM)