Takashi Miike

Anyone seen Last Life in the Universe? Miike's got a (small?) role in it.

Interesting.....

3 Extremes, maybe worth a look- Chan Wook Park, Miike and Fruit Chan (now there's a name) directing a segement each. Sounds like Four Rooms, though hopefully good.

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Hate to let you down, but it kind of sucks. Miike's segment, Box, is easily the worst of the three as it has absolutely no point to it - though it does have some damn fine camera work and sound use. Chan Wook Park's segment Cut was good, very reminescent of Fincher's work in Panic Room, but fell apart at the end (at least for me because it didn't make any sense). Fruit Chan's Dumplings was certainly the best of the three. It was sick as hell and didn't pull any of it's punches. I haven't seen any of his other work, but Dumplings was awesome.

Overall, as flawed as I thought two of the three were, I liked the movie just because of the vibe of the whole thing. It was like reading those old anthologies of Scary Stories:

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Yah, i kinda got a vibe 3 Extremes wasn't too great, though i'm still interested to watch it, after seeing Izo mind.

I disagree BOX was the best of them.
It makes sense once you watch it twice, It was very interesting in my opinion and sorta gives u a WTF at the end a good WTF and it's not mindlessly thought out. The BOX is the best out of the three "Dumplings" in my opinion is overrated but i haven't watched the full version yet.


::SPOILERS::

Box at the end what i got from it watching it twice is that at the end She was having a nightmare, they both were dreaming about how life would be if they maybe got seperated in the past. The younger twin probably was dreaming about somebody killing her and that turned out to be her sister, while the other one was dreaming about killing her sister because she could not live a normal life because of her. There DREAMS somehow combine and effect each other because the older sister mentioned that sometimes they both have similar dreams. the reason why the movie might be called BOX is either because they both eventually died in the box, OR that it's a metaphore and they can never feel free because they are both always together and therefore it feels like both of them are stuck in the box constantly.

This is what i got from watching it twice

Yeah, I got the ending the first go around. It's not hard to figure out, it's just absolutely fruitless. There was no lesson being taught, no moral to be learned and no lasting impressions left by it. It's just kind of there. The story was just remarkably average and often times cliche in every respect.

Pyro, what did you think of IZO?

Cliched? no definately not.

It's not hard to figure out? riiight. There are so many different endings people can get out of Takashi Miike's Ending for Box.
if all Park's ending was more cliched and similar to a tale of two sisters because in a tale of two sisters the girl thought she was the mother and in this one everything was also flipped around in the end without a thoughtfull explanation

No lesson being taught? wait... SO movies Must have lessons being taught right? so what does Dumplings teach?
Dumplings isn't exactly original it is also cliched at timed and can be considered remarkably average at times.

I agree with OG-. Dumplings was the only worthwhile part of Three... Extremes. Miike's segment was an uninteresting exercise in style-over-substance and Chan-wook's segment was confusing and at times very boring.

then if you disagree why not disagree with Miikes Style of directing movies because you know HIM he LOVES to have confusing thoughtfull endings in his Famous movies in america.

If that's the case, why did I get the same ending the first time I saw it that you got the second time around?

I think all movies should teach you something, yes. A movie doesn't have to be sermon on a subject matter, it just has to have some foundation to it. One of the base criteria for a movie being good, in my book, is that I have to walk away from it thinking or knowing something different than I did before I walked in. I need a movie to provide an example of something for me to store in my bank of examples I keep in my brain. Box just didn't do that.

If you don't think there is a lesson being taught in Dumplings you should stop watching movies right now. If you watched that movie and didn't witness a washed up woman becoming so consumed with a need to look and feel young for the men in her life that she eats partially developed fetuses then I don't know what movie you watched. The ending to that film is possibly more morbid than anything I've seen in a decade. And calling it cliched is just wrong:



It's sick as hell and I love it.

Dumplings was fantastic. It was disturbing without actually going to the maximum lengths it could have gone to. It reveals just the right amount while leaving the burden of disgust up to the imagination.

Because you have to consider the other Variables

Movies were made to be entertainment, Some people watch it for entertainment and watch it only for it's artistic values. Just like Mona Lisa, there is no Lesson taught there. Be more open minded.

There is no lesson in Dumplings because they don't portray the people who did wrong bad people, also the person wanted to eat the babies to get her relationship well, so i don't understand this MORAL story Dumplings has since it barely has none, the moral is as thin as crappy american slasher movies showing people who have sex always dying and it's portraying that having sex is bad and when u do you die.
and when you said

{{{{{didn't witness a washed up woman becoming so consumed with a need to look and feel young for the men in her life that she eats partially developed fetuses then I don't know what movie you watched.}}}}}

I can't see where you are getting that moral from since they never say that you shouldn't be her nor do they ever imply that meaning. The SOLE fact the reason the movie was made was to scare you.

Dumplings is a Cliched movie all the scare tactics are completely cliched. Maximum Lengths? there was no imagination involved in Dumplings.
Takashi Miikes one left it up for the imagination leaving you with a complicated deep ending.

and Takashi Miikes since it leaves it up for the imagination and is very artistic and has a unusual story about Murder leading to a Moral that our Human nature is very evil and get jealous and sometimes have the nerve to kill our own FAMILY but we have to live with it and try and go on.
the moral is as thin as Dumplings, but BOX has a better Moral because of the fact that Takashi Miikes charachter knows that they are doing wrong and actually apologize.

If all Dumplings was going more to the extreme with violence and gore

watching somebody getting eaten by a baby isn't really anything new even in Stephen Chow's king of beggars you would see these people crushing a baby and Drinking there blood for some kind of ritual. Also there is a movie called CHINESE PORKBUN or in america "THE UNTOLD STORY" which talks about a killer killing people and selling them for food to earn money. Theres also hannibal where he eats people who he doesn't like and so on. the only difference is that Dumplings uses baby's which i'm not suprised and already sorta knew it was going on in the beginning of the movie which leaves no mystery or suspense in movies except for Exagerated Sound Effects and typical sex scenes, and your typical gore.


More Morbid? if you want a mor morbid movie Audition or Ichi was tons more Morbid then Dumplings. i don't find Dumplings Morbid as much for the fact that they are not forcing the charachters to do what they do not want to do and and actually if all BOX is alot more morbid for the fact they have to and also have unwholesome thoughts not because they don't want to but they have to or being forced to.

You don't find the consumption of foetuses to be morbid? Harumph.

How limited is your exposure to Miike? You keep citing Ichi and Audition as if they were masterpieces. I'd wager that they're easily his most overrated films. Different strokes for different folks though, you know what I'm saying?

The Mona Lisa is a certainly a lesson in the art world. It's a painting that hides it's own story with several incredibly subtle techniques. No one knows the story behind the "smile" etc etc. It is an example of art as an enigma. I didn't say that a movie has to actually teach you something, in fact I specifically said it doesn't have to be a sermon, I said it has to provide a solid example of something.

It never had any intention of showing the viewer that this people were "bad people", in fact I think it had every intention to show that they were good people, they were ordinary people, they just happened to fall prey to the pitfalls of aesthetic fixations in the modern world. The lesson of Dumplings is that one should not let yourself become so completely possesed with a need for something as superficial as tight skin that you will eat your own child. It is a lesson against the artificial preservation of youth. It is a lesson showing why you shouldn't let looks take such a powerful stronghold on you.

Do you honestly think that the trend of having people who have sex in slasher films die is a conscious effort on the part of the filmmaker to preach abstinence? It has nothing to do with a moral. It's simply because people are vulnerable when they're f*cking. They don't show people getting stabbed when they're naked in the shower because they're trying to teach you the moral that you shouldn't take showers naked. They do it because people feel isolated, alone and vulnerable when they're naked.

First, the issue of scares. Dumplings doesn't have a single scare in it. It is not a scary movie. It wasn't written as a scary movie and it wasn't presented as a scary movie. The movie was made to disgust you. It never once puts the audience in any position of fear and it never once puts any of it's characters in danger of loosing their life. The only fear in the movie is the fear the woman has of loosing her husband and her social life. It wasn't intended to scare you away from eating babies - I'd assume the average person can figure that out on their own - it was intended to gross you out and it does a damn good job at that.

Yah, the woman doesn't die from eating the babies. Hell, she ends up better off at the end of the movie than she was at the beginning. But someone doesn't have to die to show that something is wrong. It shows how completely ****ed up this woman's perception of the world and of right and wrong becomes because of her new found diet. It was ment to show the pattern of consumption prevalent in society today. In fact, it had a very similar message and moral as Dawn of the Dead in that people have become the ultimate consumers, who instead of gobbling up commercial goods they've started to consume each other.
Box was ment to show how people put up with and tolerate the life they live. It is a portrait of the manic depressive. Of how people desire to have their life changed in extreme ways. I like that. I like that a lot actually. Still doesn't change the fact that it was boring and fruitless. It had a deus ex machina ending that pretty much subverts the rest of the movie. It comes down from the heavens and reveals something that was not in the rest of the movie and it's supposed to knock it out of the ball park for the viewer. But it doesn't, because by the time of it's revelation all care for the character has been lost. It's boring.

It was artistic. I loved the cinematography and the sound design and the music. But the story was not at all cohesive.

That it did (in contrast to Box). Box' story wasn't a gory story. Dumplings' was. You can't fault a story for being what it was intended to be. That's like watching Star Wars and being mad because the whole thing takes place in another galaxy.

I'm glad you figured out it was baby's in the beginning of it because it doesn't try to hide it at all. It's not supposed to be a mystery as to what is in the dumplings. Yes, it doesn't start out by flat out addressing the issue, but this wasn't done to hide anything, it was done to egg on the imagination. You watch it and think, "she's about to eat a person isn't she? That lady is about to eat a freaking baby. Don't eat that baby. Do NOT eat that baby. Oh god that lady is eating a baby!!!"

The suspense in the movie is rather light, which is again good because it wasn't supposed to make your knuckles go white. It doesn't come from hightened anticipation, it comes from refrained disgust as to what the woman is doing.

What you've just fragmented out is the very reason why I consider Dumplings more morbid than Ichi the Killer, Audition or any other handful of Miike films. No one is holding a gun to her head. No one is making her do anything. This woman is heading straight down a downward spiral towards a diet consisting only of dumplings made of babies. She drinks her own blood. She, completely voluntairlly, is becoming a cannibal. On top of that, she enjoys it! She keeps doing it because she actually likes it. And nothing stops her. That is sick. That is morbid.

Other films that are certainly more graphic and characteristically full of over the top violence aren't more morbid because it is forced. They're more telling of the violent nature of mankind and blatant disregard for humanity, but they're not simple, isolated tales of moral decadence. They're epics of blood. Killing in those movies becomes stastical, it becomes expected. That's not really morbid, it's just nasty to watch.

Seeing as i havn't seen 3 Extremes i kinda skipped most this thread.

OG, i havn't seen Izo yet. When i find a decent enough looking auction for it on eBay i'll be sure to bid, until then i'm waiting in bitter anticipation...

Miike's new movie. Looking...interesting

http://www.yokai-movie.com/

Haha, that movie looks awesome!!

I'd see simply because of the ending scene of that trailer.

i agree They are but those are very good examples of how much more gruesome those 2 movies are then most of them though Gozu might actually be a better example

Just came back from a trip! anyways OG good responses though i still do not agree at all. I'll just agree to Disagree!

Gozu is great it's extreamly funny in a dark sick way. my fav. miike film
I have mixed filling's about Ichi and is probably the least fav. of the ones I have seen.
I really like audiction it's almost poetic the best shot film I have seen from miike

That's all I have seen and really am looking forwerd to seeing more

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