A DEVASTATING `3 NEEDLES'.

Byline: Evan Henerson Staff Writer

Women and children die slowly and miserably, entire populations are at risk of being wiped out. Parents make hugely unsettling sacrifices to protect their offspring. Nuns cut Mephisto- pholean bargains and barely live to see their efforts rewarded.

``3 Needles,'' Thom Fitzgerald's globe-spanning investigation of the effects of AIDS, may ultimately be a call to unity, but there's an extreme amount of despair and misery before we get to hear that trumpet blare.

From a rural farming village in China to the sets of Canadian porn films to tribal communities in South Africa, Fitzgerald tracks AIDS to corners of the world where the disease is untreated and often unnamed. Familiar performers like Stockard Channing, Olympia Dukakis and Lucy Liu appear as periodic tour guides. Just about every character seen in the film is either ill, working with the infected or on the brink.

Writer-director Fitzgerald and cinematographer Thomas B. Harting have captured some starkly exotic locations, and the performances of both veteran actors and locally cast first-timers are equally devastating. For a film that clearly represents a kind of crusade for Fitzgerald, ``3 Needles'' proves a surprisingly quiet experience.

Then again, excessive words and dramatic exposition aren't required to turn stomachs. If the ritual circumcision -- with a close-up on a contaminated, bloody knife -- doesn't do it, take heart (or cyanide). Channing's performance as a mother on a grim quest to establish a life-insurance policy for her porn-star son awaits.

The two sequences occur continents apart and actually have nothing to do with each other, although Fitzgerald would likely argue that they're inextricably linked. The AIDS virus is sweeping its way across uninformed populations faster than health-care workers can keep pace, and those who have knowledge are usually the ones making the riskiest decisions.

Fitzgerald tells his three stories consecutively. He begins in China where Jin Ping (played by Lucy Liu) establishes her mobile blood collection service in a tiny impoverished village. At the equivalent of about $5 per donation, the locals are more than eager to take the needles.

Rice farmer Tong Sam (Tanabadee Chokpikultong) has a cold, which disqualifies him from donating -- and probably saves his life. Instead, Sam pulls a string and gets his underage daughter Qi (Yotaka Chorkreaw) to donate instead. Little Qi doesn't mind. She figures this makes her partial owner of her father's field and water buffalo. Except the entire village gets sick, and the hugely pregnant Jin isn't looking so fit herself.

Matters aren't more more hopeful in Canada, where B-level porn stud Denys (Shawn Ashmore) cheats on his blood tests and ends up infecting the better part of Canada's blue-movie population. His waitress mom Olive (Channing), getting wind of her son's difficulties, does some dangerous parental scheming to help him out.

And finally in Africa, a trio of missionaries (Sandra Oh, Olympia Dukakis and Chloe Sevigny) look to bring comfort and salvation to a destitute -- and largely infected -- village. Sevigny's novice Sister Clara, realizing that prayer alone won't get results, figures the local plantation owner (Ian Roberts) may have some influence. She's correct, but there's a price.

If there's a glimmer of hope at the end of this darkness, Fitzgerald -- whose previous film, ``The Event'' also dealt with AIDS -- is slow to reach it. There are certainly less noble reasons to assemble a cast of this size and magnitude. Holiday cheer, however, is in no way part of ``3 Needles' '' agenda.

Evan Henerson, [phone]

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3 NEEDLES - Three stars

(Not rated: adult language and themes, violence, sexuality)

Starring: Shawn Ashmore, Stockard Channing, Olympia Dukakis, Lucy Liu, Sandra Oh, Chloe Sevigny.

Director: Thom Fitzgerald.

Running time: 2 hr. 7 min.

Playing: Laemmle Sunset 5, Hollywood, Laemmle One Colorado, Pasadena.

In a nutshell: A call to unity in an AIDS-ravaged world via three equally devastating snapshots.