Just so you know, three giants of international cinema are hoping to seduce you. Oh, don't feel too special; this same troika of filmmakers already tried their move on me with "Eros," an uneven trio of short films whose common denominator might have been love. Or passion. Or was it merely sex? It's still a bit hazy, though I do remember a surplus of boobs and butts.

Wong Kar-Wai heats things up first with "The Hand," in which the director of "In the Mood For Love" and "2046" further explores his persistent themes of yearning and ‘60s fashion, along with a sassy new topic: hand jobs. Chang Chen (you'd never recognize him as the dreamy Mongolian outlaw from "Crouching Tiger") stars as a meek apprentice tailor who learns his way around the female form thanks to a bossy prostitute (screen goddess Gong Li), and "The Hand" follows their professional association through her personal ups and downs. It's classically muted Wong, pocket-sized, with stunning vintage cheongsams and unrequited love (both converge in one shockingly erotic scene), as well as heart-melting photography by Wong's enduring cinematographer Christopher Doyle.

"Equilibrium" is Steven Soderbergh's submission to "Eros," an ultimately mind-bending tale that observes a session in which anxious ad exec Nick (the increasingly invaluable Robert Downey Jr.) describes a recurring dream about a woman to his hilariously distracted shrink (last year's Best Supporting Actor Alan Arkin). Set in the mid 50's, "Equilibrium" is flawlessly shot, elegant black and white alternating with delusion blue, but good luck puzzling out its thematic relevance, especially when Soderbergh tosses a trippy third-act curveball that'll occupy your mind with other questions. This marks the first time Soderbergh has worked from his own script since 1996's bonkers "Schizopolis," a curious fact considering his first stab at a screenplay (1990's "sex, lies, and videotape") earned him an Academy Award nomination.

When Michelangelo Antonioni wrapped permanently this year at the age of 94, he left behind an influential body of work that included 1960's "L'avventura," 1966's "Blowup," and 1975's "The Passenger." So please do not remember Antonioni for his contribution to "Eros," entitled "The Dangerous Thread of Things." It's a pointless, meandering (and dreadfully dubbed) tale of a bickering couple and their bodacious neighbor, all of whom are prone to spouting stilted, nonsensical assertions about love and relationships... and two of whom appear in various states of undress, the sort of naked chick-anery that used to be found on Cinemax at 3 a.m. Now, I certainly don't enjoy trashing the dead, but all's fair in love and film.

"The Hand" is by far the best of the three chapters, which unfortunately means that "Eros" came too - um, peaked prematurely. So let's end on a more uplifting note: Soderbergh is now primping next year's Che Guevara flick ("Guerrilla") with Benicio Del Toro (sigh) in the main role, while Wong is rumored to be remaking Orson Welles' "The Lady From Shanghai"! Perfect.

Easter is still a ways off, but if you can't wait that long for too much ham, tide yourself over with Kenneth Branagh's version of "Sleuth," starring (over)actors Michael Caine and Jude Law in a sadistic game of one-upmanship between the cuckolded husband and the younger lover, a contest during which the lady is an afterthought. Rounding out this He-Man Woman Haters' Club is Nobel Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter, who streamlines Anthony Shaffer's 1970 play with surprising misogyny, homophobia to spare, and guns that totally don't symbolize actual guns.

Caine plays a successful author who invites his wife's lover (Law) to his slick, gadget-filled estate to discuss a divorce, but the talk quickly devolves into a battle of wits, followed by a lame heist idea, ideally a curtain and maybe some snacks, then one truly laughable disguise. The gimmick here is that the 1972 screen adaptation of "Sleuth" featured Caine in Law's role, but now Caine's portraying the older spouse formerly embodied by Laurence Olivier. Honestly, it sounds pretty good on paper - Branagh! Pinter! Caine! Law? - and there are occasional flashes of humor in the heavy-handed interplay between the two leads, but there's no getting past Branagh's meddling camerawork, and especially Pinter's frosty, soulless words.

Eros

(R), directed by Wong Kar-Wai, Steven Soderbergh, and Michelangelo Antonioni

Screens Tuesday at Dryden

Sleuth

(R), directed by Kenneth Branagh

Opens Friday at The Little