America So Beautiful (Babak Shokrian, USA) Examining masculinity and familial identity with a comic seriousness worthy of early Scorsese, director Babak Shokrian's first film deserves a life outside the festival circuit. Set in disco-crazed 1979 Los Angeles – when the Iranian hostage situation gave bigots a patriotic flag to wave – America So Beautiful's exposure of racism is both historical and all too current. Adding potent detail to the smallest supporting characters, Shokrian is a storyteller and a stylist whose considerable ambitions don't distort his observations. The same can't be said, though, for his protagonist, Houshang (Iranian pop star Mansour), who sells himself and his family out to cross the velvet rope in a quest for fleeting success. The fashions are accurate, and the superb soundtrack is thoughtfully employed – like Whit Stillman in The Last Days of Disco, Shokrian uses disco to interrogate American (im)moral codes and freedoms, but his viewpoint isn't so blasé. Sat/9, 6:45 p.m.; Tues/12, 9:30 p.m., AMC Kabuki 8. (Johnny Ray Huston)

Betelnut Beauty (Lin Cheng-sheng, Taiwan) The romance of Fei-Fei (pop star Sinje) and Feng (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon's Chang Chen), two similarly directionless (and photogenic) twentysomethings drifting through Taipei, is clearly meant to be. Desperate to escape from her overprotective mother, she stands in the middle of a street in a rainstorm, screaming her head off; without a second thought, he joins her. Later he finds her working as a "betelnut beauty," selling the chewable, high-inducing nuts from a neon-covered roadside stand, wearing equally neon-bright clothes and makeup. Passion sparks, and night rides on Feng's scooter, dance club visits, and heart-to-hearts follow. Though Feng offers to work as a baker (a job he loathes) so that Fei-Fei can leave the gangster-riddled world of betelnuts, he finds himself being pulled into the seedy culture thanks to Guang (Kao Ming-Chun), an underboss whose wealth-gathering schemes tend to backfire. Essential viewing for anyone who swooned over Chang's Crouching Tiger desert warrior, Lin Cheng-sheng's Betelnut Beauty is also an engaging snapshot of two young lovers who find comfort in a relationship that both hope will provide stability – however fleeting – in their aimless lives. Sat/9, 9:30 p.m.; Wed/13, 7 p.m., AMC Kabuki 8; Sat/16, 7:15 p.m., Camera 3 Cinemas. (Cheryl Eddy)

'I Know Karate' Nguyen Tan Hoang's 11-minute "Pirated" was one of the highlights of last year's SFIAAF. This year he's curated a selection of past and present shorts that have links to his own renegade fandom and comic-critical sensuality. Richard Fung (1986's "Chinese Characters") and Stuart Gaffney (2000's "My Lover's Aunt's Porn") offer the latter, with an emphasis on the critical. The brazen worship peaks with Marcus Young's Day-Glo "5 Minutes to Cloud Boundary" (2001), which beams Persis Khambatta out of Star Trek and into a more glamorous, color-friendly zone. (Alas, she still must battle Joan of Arc-style with offscreen voices of alleged authority.) Proof that camp can still sting: the nuclear wig in Michael Shaowanasai's To Be or Not to Be: The Adventures of Iron Pussy III. Proof that murder can be legal: the skewering of a white boyfriend in Wayne Yang and Shawn Durr's "Chopstick Bloody Chopstick." Sun/10, noon, Castro. (Huston)

Jan Dara (Nonzee Nimibutr, Thailand/Hong Kong) The longer Tears of the Black Tiger (a.k.a. Fah Talai Jone) languishes without a U.S. release date, the more it looks like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon-inspired greed motivated Miramax to buy Wisit Sasanatieng's fantastic Thai cowboy tale. (A shame, since Sasanatieng updates melodrama with greater color and ingenuity than Lars von Trier.) But Tears's producer, Nonzee Nimibutr, still has the international art market in mind; his third effort as a director, Jan Dara, adapts "the most famous erotic novel in Thai literature" by replacing the r in erotic with a soft-core x. Ice-cube massages and incestuous soap operatics can't disguise the fact that Nimibutr's brand of candied kitsch isn't as original or subversive as Sasanatieng's. Tues/12, 7 p.m.; Wed/13, 9:30 p.m., AMC Kabuki 8. (Huston)

Nabi – the Butterfly (Moon Seung-wook, South Korea) A graduate of the National Film Academy of Lodz, Poland (which spawned Roman Polanski), Moon Seung-wook pairs digital video and dystopia in his debut feature. Though the matchup seems apt, some of his favored technical tactics (in particular, camera work that lurches during moments of emotional upheaval) become heavy-handed. The futuristic scenario – in which viruses are coveted for their ability to erase human suffering – is compelling, but Nabi's chief strength is lead actor Kim Ho-jung; a celebrated stage veteran, she struggles to maintain some form of emotional grounding as her director dives clumsily into cool blue pools and foamy seas. Sat/9, 5 p.m.; Mon/11, 9 p.m., Kabuki. (Huston)