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Three...Extremes


Three... Extremes



I'll review each entry individually, but beforehand I'd just like to say I want to see more compliations like this. It felt like one of those old collections of Scary Stories I read as a kid. These three films weren't scary, but I loved the vibe.

Box directed by Takashi Miike, 2004



Takashi Miike is certainly one of the most cohesive aueters of the past decade of filmmaking. Enjoy his movies or not, each contains a blend of perversion that is surprisingly unique. I'm not an all accepting fan of Miike, the perverse nature of every film exceeds what I'd accept as entertainment (though if you scroll up you can read my rather cryptic, but ultimately fond review of IZO), so I don't have any bias when it comes to his films. Box sucked. The story is of a woman who dreams of an event in her youth that resulted in the death of her sister, whom she performed with. We as the viewer are treated to this woman trying to cope with this dream, which may or may not be a dream, but by the time of the revelation of it all the story has lost all cohesion. It is an understandable story, it's just a pointless and fruitless story.

The visuals though are worth note. The etheral movements of the camera are perfectly reminescent of a dream. The use (or lack their of) of sound was dead on, creating dread or confusion when it needed to. The look of the short keeps you watching, but the story is incredibly amateur.

1.5 out of 5

Dumplings directed by Fruit Chan, 2004

Easily the best out of the three shorts. Fruit Chan, the only of the three directors whose work I haven't seen before, created a haunting and stomach churning film. I felt it lacked the proper social commentary it kept hinting at, but hey, I don't think the intention was to enlighten people as to the desperation caused by aging and the fixation on anti-aging, I'm pretty sure it was just to gross you out.

The story is about a has-been actress who goes to a woman known for her amazing dumplings. We quickly catch on that these dumplings are intended to keep the eater youthful looking and that there is something not quite right about the ingredients, but I like how the story took it's time revealing it's origins. It didn't draw attention to the fact that a woman was eating aborted fetuses, but it did emphasize that a woman was eating aborted fetuses and didn't care about it. I won't get into the rest of the short because I don't want to ruin the bite it has, but it did not pull it's punches and I respect that. Though just before the end there was a quick scene that had me slightly confused as to why it was in there, but oh well.

I've gotta check out more of Fruit Chan's work, because if it's as unflinching as Dumplings was, I will be a huge fan.

4 out of 5

Cut directed by Chan-Wook Park, 2004



I think Chan-Wook Park is an amazing director. Oldboy is a helluva stylistic entry to the revenge genre (I'll be watching Symapthy For Mr. Vengeance later tonight, so I'll reserve comment on that for now) and the trailer for Three... Extremes that got me interested in it in the first place was for Cut, but it wasn't anything special.

For American audiences, they'll probably just see it as some kind of rip-off on Saw, but it isn't. A famous director is kidnapped, put on his movie set, where his wife is suspended in front of a piano by dozens of wires. He wakes up and is tethered to the wall by a gigantic band of elastic. The kidnapper goes into his monologue about how he is doing this because he is a poor man, and a bad man, and he hates that the director is a rich man and a good man. I liked this because it wasn't the typical "killer punishes victims for their sins", but was actually "killer punishes victims for their lack of sins". The killer will chop off a finger of the wife every five minutes until the director kills a child strapped to a couch on the other side of the room.

The style is rich and I loved the cinematography, but the story just fell apart at the end. On top of that, before the story even did fall apart, the characters lost my interest and I didn't sympathize for either the child, the wife, or the director. I expected more from Park and was severely let down. But hey, it looked great.

3 out of 5

Overall, it's worth a watch just because it does carry that fun vibe of an anthology of extreme tales, but save for Dumplings, the film isn't anything special.

On a whole, 2.5 out of 5

The One Sentence Review - Not a grand slam as should have been expected, but if you check it out, check it out simply for the well above average entry that Dumplings is.