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Shawn Ashmore, Stockard Channing, Tanabadee Chokpikultong, Olympia Dukakis, Lucy Liu ... see more see more... , Sandra Oh , Ian Roberts , Chloë Sevigny , Chin Han , Sook-Yin Lee , Steven Crowder , Asckt , Caroline Aspirot

Three stories, which offer differing perspectives on the AIDS pandemic, are featured in this anthology-drama. Sister Clara (Chloë Sevigny) is a young nun who is working with two, more experienced, mis... read more read more...sionaries (Olympia Dukakis and Sandra Oh) in a village along the African coast. Sister Clara finds herself struggling against ignorance and misinformation among the natives, but discovers she can only accomplish so much through traditional means and is forced to make a great personal sacrifice for the greater good. Denny (Shawn Ashmore) lives in Montreal and makes his living acting in pornographic movies -- a career he's kept hidden from his mother (Stockard Channing), who depends on Denny for financial support. Like most of his colleagues, Denny must present current HIV tests to producers in order to keep working. But unlike most of his fellow porn actors, Denny is actually carrying the AIDS virus, and presents fraudulent test paperwork in order to keep working. And Jin Ping (Lucy Liu) collects blood donations from villagers in mainland China, but while she claims that the blood will be used in government hospitals, Jin Ping is actually in cahoots with illegal private doctors, and she fails to use proper methods for safe blood collection. When Tong Sam (Tanabadee Chokpikultong) loses nearly all of his friends, family, and villagers to AIDS, he takes it upon himself to do something about Jin Ping and her reckless actions. Three Needles received its North American premier at the Toronto Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

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66% liked it

2,868 ratings

Critics

35% liked it

37 critics

Unrated, 2 hr. 7 min.

Directed by: Thom Fitzgerald

Release Date: December 1, 2006

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DVD Release Date: April 3, 2007

Stats: 180 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (180)

  • gator681
    December 1, 2007
    gator681
    [font=Century Gothic]A few years previously, writer-director Thom Fitzgerald made a film, "The Event," about a man dying of AIDS in New York City. With his latest film, "3 Needles," he brings a global perspective to the edidemic in three segments:[/font]
    [font=Century Gothic][/f... read moreont]
    [font=Century Gothic]"The Fortitude of the Buddha" - In southern China, Jin(Lucy Liu), a very pregnant blood smuggler, sets up a blood donation unit in a village to pay locals $5 apiece for their blood. A poor farmer, Tong Sam(Tanabadee Chokpikultong), is too sick to give but he volunteers his 11-year old daughter, Qi(Yotaka Cheukaew), instead.[/font]
    [font=Century Gothic][/font]
    [font=Century Gothic]"The Passion of the Christ" - In Montreal, a porn star, Denys(Shawn Ashmore), is faking his HIV blood tests with his invalid father's(Aubert Pallascio) blood. Eventually his ruse is discovered.[/font]
    [font=Century Gothic][/font]
    [font=Century Gothic]"The Innocence of the Pagans" - In Africa, three nuns(Olympia Dukakis, Sandra Oh and Chloe Sevigny) arrive not to care for the large amount people suffering from AIDS, but to proselytize.(Thus, explaining why missionaries are some of my least favorite people.)[/font]
    [font=Century Gothic][/font]
    [font=Century Gothic]"3 Needles" is an ambitious movie that is occasionally powerful and beautiful. Through an understated style with little dialogue, the movie tells three stories that do a good job of showing how AIDS can flourish through self-interest and exploitation but also a way of fighting it with activists united on a global scale. In the end, the people of the world need to communicate better with each other to improve the world we live in.[/font]
  • tedrohe
    March 13, 2011
    tedrohe
    My review back in 2007: Although this movie is filled with good actors, it falls very short of a captivating, inspiring, or intelligent story on the AIDS crisis.

    I was not fan's of any of these actors or the director, but due to the story subject I was willing to give it a try.... read more The best story was the intial full story ripped from the headlines about AIDS being passed onto innocent Chinese rural citizens. What I was surprised at was that they do not touch on the cover up.

    After an initial sad, but very truthful story the movie goes quickly downhill from there. The second story is an idiotic and selfish story, that puts in a twist, but doesn't pay off and only is weird. I felt no sympathy for any of the characters in that second story.

    The third story show's the writer and director's total misunderstanding of Catholic theology, nuns, and their views. Then essentially makes a saint out of a Nun who pimps herself out to a rich western business man for the sake of the dying AID's children to make her out as some saint. It ends up being a sad and idiotic moral to a very real crisis in Africa.

    This story is not like Babel other than being a losely connected story in various countries. Babel shockingly showed human connection through pain, but this story instead shows nothing of the sort. Instead, it uses a very real crises as a backdrop to some interesting story telling and outright mischaracterization of a faith and promotion of some Unitarian feel good afterschool hogwash.
  • StaisilD
    May 1, 2008
    StaisilD
    One movie, three stories, one epidemic; AIDS.
    The film begins in Africa where young boys are undergoing ritual which includes a circumcision, learning to fight, and to be come a man. From Africa we go to rural China where Jin Ping (Lucy Liu) runs an undergroung blood bank, payin... read moreg the people $5.00 american per liter of blood they donate, and since most of the people are poor they are more then willin to donate. While taken the blood, Jin who is HIV positve along with her husband contaminates the people. Moving to Canada we meet Denys (Shawn Ashmore), a porn star who is HIV positive but steals blood from his ill father for his frequent 'tests' required by the porn director to hide his positive status in order to continue making porn movies to support his family. But after his father dies the director of the movies finds out he is postive and fires him. His mother (Stockard Channing) fearing for her and her sons life, learns that AIDS patients' are ability to cash in thier life insurance early, so she infects herself so that she can take advantage of the early insurance cash to provide a life of comfort in the small time they both now have for herself and her son. Then we return to South Africa where three nuns - Sister Clara (Chloë Sevigny), Sister Hilde Francis (Olympia Dukakis) and Sister Mary John (Sandra Oh) - set up a clinic to treat the villagers, finding only that acts of tremendous self-sacrifice can stave off the spread of the gore of AIDS. The boys from the beginning of the film who are now men are returning to life that it is filled whith pain.This film shows excellent cinematography throughout. It shows a lot of beautiful scenery, such as breathtaking waterfalls, beautiful sunsets, new moons. It examines moral dilemmas and the evil side of humanity. Worth watching.
  • neidisch
    March 9, 2008
    neidisch
    Give me Crash, give me Babel, give me The Dead Girl, they were stories of a person's life connecting to the others.... But 3 Needles only needed one thing to connect them all. Needle.
  • deecee0075
    June 18, 2007
    deecee0075
    It's harder to find non-mainstream movies like this. I tend to stay away from the AIDS theme movies...they have been done over and over but this one was original and worth it.
  • rachzilla
    May 28, 2007
    rachzilla
    I was highly disappointed by this film. It looked promising, especially considering the cast, but somewhere the directing went bad. Such a storyline could have been played out much more smoothly and excitingly. Admittedly, Chloë's presence in the film was the driving point for fi... read morenally seeing this, but by the time we reached her scenes I had been bored to tears and nearly fastforwarded the movie. Furthermore, has the woman no shame?! No wonder she can't hit it mainstream, when she'll do basically anything. The character called for it, I understand, but the truth is that Chloë plays the least convincing nun I have ever seen in my life. But maybe I have just been biased by her incredible willingness to have sex on screen no matter what. Regardless, don't waste money on this - wait to catch it on HBO. Note: I will say this for it... the final monologue compensated for a lot.

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Critic Reviews

G. Allen Johnson
December 1, 2006
G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle

If nothing else, [director Thom] Fitzgerald has demonstrated how huge a challenge the AIDS epidemic is on a worldwide scale, and how it will take a concerted, intelligent effort to solve it. It'll tak... Full Review

Jack Mathews
December 1, 2006
Jack Mathews, New York Daily News

Only the African story feels complete, while the Chinese story is gloomily hopeless and the Montreal story is just a bad idea. 3 Needles is not about AIDS; it's about the exploitation of it. Full Review

Teresa Budasi
December 1, 2006
Teresa Budasi, Chicago Sun-Times

Broad in scope and at times visually stunning, [director Thom] Fitzgerald's project is ambitious but lacks cohesion. Full Review

Wesley Morris
December 1, 2006
Wesley Morris, Boston Globe

It's hard to know what exactly the movie means with a lot of the choices it makes, even if, ultimately, it means well. Full Review

Kevin Thomas
November 30, 2006
Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times

Though not as coherent as it might be, 3 Needles, with its stunning cinematography by Thomas M. Harting, is never less than engaging and suggests powerfully the myriad reasons why AIDS, after a quarte... Full Review

Stephen Holden
November 30, 2006
Stephen Holden, New York Times

Had it taken a more hard-headed approach, 3 Needles might have been to the AIDS epidemic what Traffic was to the drug trade.

Michael Phillips
November 30, 2006
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

[A] well-meaning misfire. Full Review

Jan Stuart
November 30, 2006
Jan Stuart, Newsday

Provocative and ambitious. Full Review

Andrew O'Hehir
November 29, 2006
Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com

It sometimes produces moments of unexpected power. It also produces a bizarre and fatally uneven movie, veering from black comedy to maudlin religiosity, which seems to have been made in total defianc... Full Review

Jonathan Rosenbaum
November 29, 2006
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

By the time the movie returned to Africa, it had lost me despite its talented cast and its noble intentions. Full Review

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