BY BOB STRAUSS >FILM CRITIC

Lou Ye was banned from making movies in China after this politically charged drama played the Cannes Film Festival a few years ago. But it likely wasn't the protest scenes that alarmed the authorities as much as the film's copious, relatively graphic sex.

Though fairly tame compared to the contortionist antics in Ang Lee's "Lust, Caution," there's some pretty raw stuff here as intense provincial girl Yu Hong (moody, heartbreaking Hao Lei) leads a group of her Beijing University classmates into all kinds of emotionally shattering erotic experimentation as the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations gear up around them.

The second half of the film follows their disillusioned young adulthood over the next 10 years or so, but it seems to be less about the aftermath of dashed social ideals than pining for a really great sex partner you just couldn't get along with. Mopey-soapy as it sometimes gets, though, this is intelligent, passionate stuff from the director of "Suzhou River" and "Purple Butterfly." Let's hope the commies loosen up and let Lou make another film soon.

Not rated: sex, nudity, violence, language. In Mandarin and German with English subtitles.

Playing: Laemmle Playhouse 7, Pasadena; Laemmle Music Hall, Beverly Hills.