Starring Yuanyuan Gao and Nicholas Tse. In Mandarin, with English subtitles.

This forgettably titled but glossy debut for Chinese writer-director Snow Zou initially displays a few ragged bits of life, starting with the aftermath of the massive 1976 Tangshan earthquake, which killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions of people. In the time-jumping But Always, that event also removes the parents of little An Ran and the much scruffier Yongyuan. They become close in grade school, but class differences and other events eventually separate them.

The two are reunited in ’90s Beijing, and are now played by handsome Nicholas Tse (the Vancouver-raised star of numerous Hong Kong action flicks) and sleekly beautiful Yuanyuan Gao (who started out in artsy things like Beijing Bicycle and Spicy Love Soup). She’s a pre-med student and he sells clothes in an outdoor market, but they still manage to deepen their connection.

Once the would-be lovers are separated by a poorly handled series of random events, she heads off to attend Columbia University, and they take turns sulking and out-nobling each other. Eventually, Yongyuan realizes a vaguely expressed dream of designing his own line of clothes, and magically turns into a supersharp businessman, ready to take Manhattan by storm. (Along the way, there’s some really weird product placement, mostly for one brand of olive oil, and the leads speak better English than do many Americans they encounter.)

For reasons never quite explained, An Ran’s medical plans fizzle, and she works as a dishwasher and tour guide. She also hooks up with an impoverished painter (Qin Hao), but he manages to have one of those off-screen “accidents” that only happen in movies. If that development feels forced, it’s nothing compared with what follows. But then, why else conclude a story in the New York City of 2001? Actually, there’s a brief coda with An Ran returning to Beijing in 2014, followed by the voice-over admonition that this is what loyal Chinese are happily doing these days. The message? Go to America, get rich, love and lose somebody, but always come home to serve your country. (P.S. Bring olive oil.)