Appealing views from other lands

A young couple take home an elderly man without a memory in the Italian “Facing Windows.” A French woman mistakes a financial advisor for a therapist and begins pouring out her heart in “Intimate Strangers.” A martial arts hero must decide whether killing a tyrant is the right thing to do in the Chinese epic “Hero.”

Fear not, serious moviegoers. In addition to adult-skewing movies from “indie” subsidiaries and a handful from their studio parents, less predictable summer fare can be found among the 30-odd foreign films opening in the next few months. Asian films, in particular, are strong this season, and they seem to fall into two categories -- the niche audience art film or the rousing action film. In the former we have Tian Zhuangzhuang’s remake of Fei Mu’s classic 1949 melodrama, “Springtime in a Small Town,” in which the quiet but desperate life of a young couple is disrupted by the visit of an old friend. The long-absent Gong Li appears in “Zhou Yu’s Train,” director Sun Zhou’s attempt at a Western-style art film replete with fragmented, nonlinear storytelling. Here, Gong Li tries to move beyond the two archetypes she was known for during her on-screen and off-screen partnership with director Zhang Yimou (“Raise the Red Lantern,” “To Live”) -- hot babe and country bumpkin. In this film she’s a modern woman torn between two men, often taking the train from one to the other.

Meanwhile, Zhang Yimou has been seduced by the action genre, although with a dose of metaphysical rumination. His latest, “Hero,” is full of airborne leaps and slow-motion confrontations in a tale partly told, Rashomon-like, from several points of view. In ancient China a hero is sought to assassinate the despotic Qin emperor who is, of course, so well protected that the mission means certain death. Jet Li plays Nameless (yes, really), the hero who may accomplish the deed.

From Japan comes Takeshi Kitano’s remake of the classic “Zatoichi,” now called “The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi.” In ancient Japan, Zatoichi, played by Kitano himself with a groovy head of platinum hair, is a blind masseur who happens to be a swordsman extraordinaire.

In early September, Hong Kong’s runaway box-office hit “Infernal Affairs” finally debuts here. Directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak, it won seven awards at the Hong Kong Film Awards and quickly spawned two sequels. Hong Kong superstars Tony Leung and Andy Lau play two moles on opposite sides of the law -- Leung plays an undercover cop who has infiltrated the triad, while Lau is an undercover gangster who has risen to the upper ranks of the police.

It may sound gimmicky, but rarely has a Hong Kong film been so intricately and tautly constructed.

This summer’s European films include everything from a campy farce from Holland, “Yes Nurse! No Nurse!,” to several dramas that look at the upheavals of 20th century, World War II foremost among them. For European filmmakers, the war remains a perennially rich subject.

In “Rosenstrasse” director Margarethe von Trotta takes a little-known incident during the war when the Jewish husbands of Aryan women in Berlin were rounded up and detained before being shipped to concentration camps as part of Hitler’s final solution. The wives began a vigil on Rosenstrasse, across from the building where the men were held, which became their form of protest. Although many Germans felt helpless in the face of Nazi policies, von Trotta shows that personal action could make a difference.

Ondrej Trojan’s “Zelary” begins in 1943 as an elegant Czech woman working for the resistance is about to have her cover blown. She’s ordered to escape to a remote mountain village, guided by a simple millworker, whom she’s expected to marry. At first taken aback by the rustic life (no electricity, no running water, no convenient stores), she learns the pleasures of country living and bonds with the locals.

Two Dutch siblings are the focus of “Twin Sisters,” directed by Ben Sombogaart. Separated as children, Lotte and Anna find each other, are again separated by World War II, then ultimately are reunited, although not before Lotte throws Anna out of the house for having been married to a Nazi. Her own husband, a Jew, had been sent to Auschwitz.

The prospect of future wars interests director Michael Haneke in “Time of the Wolf,” starring Isabelle Huppert as a woman with two children who flee the city and some unspecified catastrophe that has brought shortages of food and water. However, the country home she hoped would be their refuge has been overtaken by others, and their survival in the cruel new world is fraught with peril.

One of the most anticipated films from Europe also is the longest, clocking in at six hours and divided into two parts (Miramax has not yet decided how it will be released). Critically acclaimed at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, Marco Tullion Giordana’s epic “The Best of Youth” covers 40 years of social history as seen through the lives of two very different Italian brothers. Nicola is the charming, outgoing romantic, while Matteo is the idealistic introvert.

In the last decade, the French film industry seems to have undergone a revival, partly because of a new willingness to move to the speed of contemporary times. In 2001, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s “Amelie” created a modern fairy tale form, with intense candy colors and eye-popping digital effects. Yann Samuell’s “Love Me If You Dare” follows a similar funhouse route, telling the story of a boy and a girl, both misfits, from childhood to young adulthood. They dare each other to do pranks and misdeeds, alienating the rest of the world but tightening their bond with each other. All seems a big joke until love enters the equation.

A more mature couple are the subject of Patrice Leconte’s “Intimate Strangers.” Entering the wrong office, Sandrine Bonnaire mistakes Fabrice Luchini, a financial planner, for a therapist. Touched by her need, he listens, beginning a series of sessions in which she reveals her life crisis, and he inadvertently abets in her recovery.

Movies from this side of the globe include Hugo Rodriguez’s “Nicotina,” an adrenaline-fueled crime caper movie that makes good use of the split screen and other effects -- and smoking, of course.

In a deal gone wrong, small-time and big-time gangsters in Mexico shoot it out on nighttime streets and shops, all executed with a cool wryness reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino.

Not all foreign films avoid genre, but as entertainment they frequently speak your language.