The family that bathes together . . .

When you're born Japanese, certain notions are drummed into you at a very early age. Among them is the deep-seated conviction that a long soak in a hot bath is pretty much the cure-all for everything from depression to flat feet.

Not so long ago, a wife would ask her husband when he got home, "Bath first?" thereby acknowledging the supreme importance of The Soak at the end of a man's day. Not drinks or music or a te^te a te^te conversation by candlelight, you understand, but a tub filled with hot water. Then, when the women stopped asking, the men simply voiced their decisions when they got home: "Hi. Bath." To which the wife would nod and wander off. The moral to be learned here is this: Though marriages may erode and couples stop speaking to each other, baths are forever. Soak, splash and wash your cares away.

Such are the thoughts after seeing "Shower." A Chinese independent film directed by Zhang Yang ("Spicy Love Soup"), "Shower" unfolds inside the confines of a public bathhouse in Beijing. Unlike the Japanese version, Chinese baths are completely gender-segregated and offer a variety of services: shaving, massages, grooming. Customers come in the morning and spend long hours just hanging around -- flitting from the big tub to the napping area to the showers, and back to the tub again. This routine is something the Japanese can identify with and appreciate. Hi. Bath.