If you understand who the characters are and what they're supposed to represent, the performances are right on the money.

Like "Tango," Wang's film also seeks to uncover whether sex without emotion is really possible, or worth the effort.

Wang is working on your mind, not your body.

It's also about pain, which both tempers and complicates the eroticism.

A fairly sexy, serious-minded drama hobbled by its lack of real conceptual ambition.

Provoke us into examining whether the onus is on the man for turning it into a commercial proposition or the woman for agreeing to his offer.

Too arty by half.

Sober and serious and downright glum, ultimately an all-too-familiar portrait of lonely souls unable to break through their own isolation.

Where Mike Figgis' film, with Nicolas Cage and Elisabeth Shue, bore deeply and darkly into emotional territory, The Center of the World turns out to be just as fake as its setting.

All Center of the World has is the double entendre of its title, some unremarkable dramatic and sex scenes, and some embarrassing moments for its very game co-stars.

It certainly has its moments (erotic and otherwise), but there just aren't enough of them.

We should be thankful for the courage of Wang and his cast in standing against a culture that nervously treats sex as either a prurient joke or a puritan crime.

For better or worse the movie is simply simple -- the project's quality and significance depend upon one's perspective: Is this a daring and impressive homespun yarn or just a very middling stab at soft-core?

Wang's film doesn't really have anything more to say about power, manipulation and the wild unpredictability of sexual energy than "Last Tango" did 30 years ago.