VIDEO : FOREIGN FILMS FLOURISH ON SMALL SCREEN.

Byline: Robert Bianco Special to the Daily News

If we couldn't watch foreign-language films on video, most of us wouldn't be able to watch them at all.

In these days of multiplex theaters and blockbuster marketing, there's very little market left for foreign films - and what market there is, exists mainly in the largest cities. In smaller cities, you're hard-pressed to find small-budget American films, let alone films from other countries.

Odds are, then, that more people have wanted to see ``Il Postino'' (1996, Buena Vista; priced for rental) than have been able to do so, which makes it an almost ideal video release. Even if you accept Miramax's claim that ``Il Postino'' is the highest grossing foreign-language film ever released in the United States (if you adjust for inflation, the title probably belongs to ``La Cage aux Folles''), it still made only $22 million at the box office. Most American films spend more than that on catering.

Though it may not have produced overwhelming box-office results, the media fuss over ``Il Postino'' did help rekindle interest in foreign-language films, which lost the pop-culture cachet that they had at their Bergman-Truffaut height. The movie also created new interest in communist poet Pablo Neruda, who serves as the unofficial matchmaker for the postman and his beloved. It's hard to imagine a summer blockbuster doing anything similar.

Many people predicted similar success for ``Maybe ... Maybe Not'' (1996, Live; $96.98), a sex comedy that set records in its native Germany. American critics, however, were not kind to this tale of a playboy who is loved by his male roommate, and the movie never found an audience. We'll see if video helps.

On the other hand, critical reaction was generally ecstatic for Hong Kong's ``Chungking Express'' (1996, Buena Vista; priced for rental), a stylishly shot but virtually incomprehensible two-part romance. If, like most critics, you've been forced to sit through hundreds of formulaic Hollywood films, then you may find the eccentricities of ``Chungking'' a welcome relief. Otherwise, you can expect to find it odd and tiresome, despite an endearing performance by Faye Wong as an obsessed fast-food girl.

In this case, however, you don't have to just listen to critics. The movie is introduced by one of its biggest fans, Quentin Tarantino, who's using ``Chungking'' to launch his Rolling Thunder video line. If you like Tarantino's movies, maybe you'll like the movies he likes.

Or, as the Germans would say, maybe not.

Elsewhere on the foreign-language front:

Home Vision, home of many great foreign films, salutes four of the world's greatest directors this month: Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, Francois Truffaut and Akira Kurosawa. The company is releasing newly restored versions of their movies with new English subtitles.

The Fellini films are both Oscar-winners - ``La Strada'' (1954; $29.95) and ``Amarcord'' (1974; $39.95). Though ``La Strada'' is the more influential of the two, ``Amarcord'' was the greater popular success.

The Bergman films come boxed together as a $59.95 set. That may seem like a lot of money, but you're getting three masterpieces: ``The Seventh Seal'' (1957), ``The Virgin Spring'' (1959) and ``Wild Strawberries'' (1957).

The Truffaut collection is the most comprehensive and the most expensive, with three boxed sets of three films at $79.95 per set. ``Truffaut I'' has ``The Woman Next Door'' (1981), ``Confidentially Yours'' (1982) and ``Shoot the Piano Player'' (1960). ``Truffaut II'' has ``Love on the Run'' (1979), ``Two English Girls'' (1971) and ``The Soft Skin'' (1964). ``Truffaut III'' has ``Jules and Jim'' (1961), ``The 400 Blows'' (1959) and ``The Last Metro'' (1980). If you're going this far with Truffaut, you might as well also check out two of his most popular comedies, ``Day for Night'' (1973; $59.99) and the wonderful ``Small Change'' (1976; $19.99).

From Kurosawa, Home Vision has ``Yojimbo'' (1961; $29.95), which was remade both as ``A Fistful of Dollars'' and ``Last Man Standing''; and ``The Seven Samurai'' (1954; $39.95), which was remade as ``The Magnificent Seven.'' It also has ``Rashomon'' (1950; $29.95), in which Kurosawa tells the same story from four different viewpoints. It was never remade here, but its conflicting-story structure has been recycled in dozens of sitcoms.

Orion is releasing a restored version of the Oscar-winning Danish film ``Babette's Feast'' (1987, $19.98). At the time of the movie's original release, many restaurants offered dinners that replicated the film's feast. Unfortunately, if you want to eat the feast now, you're going to have to make it yourself.

Coming next month are ``Le Beau Serge'' (1958, Hen's Tooth; $29.95), ``La Silence de la Mer'' (1947, Water Bearer; $29.95), ``De Mayerling a Sarajevo'' (1940, Water Bearer; $29.95), and Satyajit Ray's ``The Stranger'' (1991, First Run; $59.95).

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Photo

Photo: ``Il Postino,'' with Massimo Troisi, left, and Philippe Noiret, is the top-grossing foreign-language release ever in the U.S., according to Miramax.