An Asian cross-cultural trilogy of horror films from accomplished indie directors.
3 Extremes is a 2004 international East Asian horror film collaboration consisting of three segments by three directors from three countries.
This movie is incredibly cruel and unrelenting. It plays as a single feature divided into three sections: "Dumplings", directed by Fruit Chan of Hong Kong, "Cut" directed by Park Chan-Wook of Korea and "Box" directed by Miike Takashi of Japan. Each section is like a dissertation in horror, although "Dumplings" could also be classified as an exploitation film.
The first story is Dumplings. It's very very disturbing and pretty gruesome. Not because of gore or anything like that, but because of the subject matter. It's no secret or spoiler that this movie is about vanity and a women's need to enhance her physical appearance to try and win her husband back from his whoring around. It concerns as most of you know, the grisly meat a former lady abortionist uses to treat her rich clients vanity needs. This movie made me squirm on more than one occasion as the woman chomps down on the dumplings with a wicked crunching sound of tiny bones.
Cut is up next. Now this is one gruesome story, which revolves around a movie director (Lee) and a former extra of his that's gone completely insane and terrorizes the director and his wife at their home. Park's short story touches on adultery, relationships, regret, fame and childhood memories - as well as featuring amputation, torture, child abuse, and a crazy set - as Lee and his kidnapper spar until the shocking (but not altogether satisfying) end. In fact, the ending is the only bad part about this otherwise intriguing story. This is the most graphic of the three stories, and the most brutal. But the twists and turns that happen towards the end, tend to confuse the whole story.
Up last is Box: This is a nightmarish tale of a woman's horrifying dreams becoming reality, but then again, maybe not. That's the difficulty with this story, there is so much surrealism, that it's hard to tell. I liked the story, some of which was very frightening. The ending however is completely totally bizarre, and it totally left me clueless as to what Miike intended for the viewer to take away from this, if anything. This is the weakest of the three stories, but still very interesting and definitely requires multiple viewings.
If you like slasher movies and jump out of your seat scary, pass on these. If you like more artistic, intelligent, and subtle horror films, then these shorts are for you. Some blood and minor amounts of gore. A job well done. I highly recommend this film to anyone who is tired of watching horror films marketed for little kids. If you are searching for something artistic, horrifying and with something to say, then by all means indulge yourself in "Three Extremes" a fine example of how Japanese Horror is kicking American Horror firmly in its ass.
