A particularly intriguing thought immediately comes to mind upon seeing the promotional kit for Eternal Summer, a Taiwanese film currently showing at local cinemas.

As a means to lure as many viewers as possible, the film's local distributor has put the words "Asian version of Brokeback Mountain" on its promotional flyers.

While such a jump-on-the-bandwagon trick is hardly new or original, and its effectiveness is open to discussion, the separate issue of misdirection comes with the above tagline.

In other words, director Leste Chen's Eternal Summer deserves its own credit -- and without the misfortune of being placed under the shadow of Brokeback, arguably the most commercially and critically successful gay film in recent years.

Yet, perhaps Brokeback director and fellow Taiwanese Ang Lee might be proud that, despite his home country's limited output of films, Eternal Summer has proven itself a worthy addition to both the new wave of Asian cinema and gay world cinema.

Eternal Summer's worth is felt immediately in the opening scene, in which a trio of impossibly good-looking youths, Jonathan (Bryant Chang), Carrie (Kate Yeung) and Shane (Joseph Chang -- no relation to Bryant), take shelter from torrential rains. Not even their visibly mild scars detract our attention from their gorgeousness, which slowly grows more intimate when the camera zooms in on Shane, staring back with a hideous smile that is only revealed at the end.

As Jonathan's narrative voice-over rolls on, the film flashes back.

We learn that, at an elementary school in a seaside town of southern Taiwan, young Jonathan was an introverted, studious student. One day, the school principal asks him to befriend Shane, a rebellious, unruly boy.

Initially, Jonathan has to remind Shane to focus on his studies, but as their friendship continues through a decade at school, they remain the same: Jonathan still prefers to bury his face in a books all the time, while Shane is a hot-shot idol thanks to his popularity on the basketball courts.

The only difference is the growing, inexplicable feeling Jonathan has for Shane, which remains unspoken.

At the height of the confusion enters Carrie, a seemingly lost teenage girl who has recently transferred from Hong Kong to the boys' high school.

She immediately takes a liking to Jonathan; needless to say the feeling is not mutual. But to his surprise, Carrie is such an acute observer that she begins noticing his undeveloped affection for his best buddy. When the truth is revealed, Carrie takes a wise turn: she promises Jonathan to stay mum about his troubled mind and heart.

What she can't promise is not to become attracted to Shane, which she does, and suddenly.

This bizarre love-triangle must endure their adolescence, an uncertain future and a singular earthquake. As with the storm that opened the film, all concludes in an unexpected outburst.

In the tradition of Pedro Almodovar's Y Tu Mama Tambien, Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers, and even the classic Jules et Jim by Fran‡ois Truffaut, the three-way, two-guys-and-a-girl relationship leads to a forced maturity of the characters. Some of these take shortcuts to bear the consequences, while others choose, aptly, to change for whatever may come.

Without going jarringly dramatic like in the above films, the characters in Eternal Summer reveal their inner conflicts through subtle acts and movements that require economical dialogue.

The glaring elements of teen life appear in the occasional cheers for Shane's basketball team, the incessant ringing of cell phones, and a fashion statement casual enough to represent today's ordinary looks. Other than that, the three leads exclusively carry the entire film -- it has almost no other prominent roles -- with dreamy attitudes that fit the film's other-worldly atmosphere.

Director Leste Chen has thus taken a laudable decision to rest the film upon the shoulders of relatively new thespians. Yeung offers a believable representation of an attention-seeking teen girl, and the two Changs let loose with their no-holds-barred performances that are sure to satisfy the film's target viewers.

Bryant even managed to grab the Best New Performer award at last year's Golden Horse Film Festival -- Taiwan's equivalent of the Academy Awards -- beating out co-star Joseph.

Acting aside, director Chen's tender touch makes it nice to watch. Dominated by greens, grays and drops of blue, the film's overall look as captured by cameraman Charlie Lam coaxes a sentimentality to go for a walk on a breezy spring afternoon.

Sans CGI, the landscape shots look achingly real and complement the low-key script to melodramatic effect.

It remains to be seen if Eternal Summer will pave the way further for Asian gay cinema to rise into more prominence, in the footsteps of predecessors going back to Happy Together and Lan Yu, and recent fare like Blue Gate Crossing or When Beckham Met Owen.

One thing for sure: No mountain need be climbed to gain an entire summer to remember.