3 Extremes
|
List Price: Our Price: $6.11 You Save: $8.87 (59%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $1.99 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of 3 Extremes
Movie Review: 3 Tales of Terror from 3 of Asia's Most Extreme
Summary: 4 Stars
This is the perfect jumping-off point
for anyone curious about diving into Asian Shock Cinema.
It contains 3 Extreme Tales,
that encompass the brunt of what Asia has to offer.
For those interested in creepy gross-out fests;
Fruit Chan's "Dumplings" will deliver.
For those interested in tales of vengeance;
Chan Wook-Park's "Cut" will leave you in pieces.
And for those seeking a ghost story;
Takashi Miike's "The Box" will haunt you.
I personally ordered this flick twice from Amazon;
- once for myself
- and once for a friend of mine who also loves Eastern Horror
To both my suprise and delight, this is a 2-disc set
The second disc containing the full version of "Dumplings",
which quite honestly, is worth the purchase alone.
Anyways ... on to the movies:
Fruit Chan's "Dumplings"
is easily the most extreme of the 3.
It tells the tale of a woman, whose Home-made Dumplings can restore the youth of anyone who can afford them.
Subsequently, she also runs a clinic out of the back of her shop, where she aquires her youthful ingredients.
Needless to say:
This one is not for The Feint of Heart or Weak of Stomach.
Chan Wook Park's "Cut"
is the most intense of of the 3 Extremes.
More than once it had me on the edge of my futon.
Another tale of of retribution, from the man who masters in the subject.
This tale concerns a POMPOUS director,
who is kidnapped by a demented extra he once employed.
Tied up with a giant rubber-band, that allows for minimum movement,
he must make the most dire decision of his life.
Is he willing to take the life of a little girl to save his wifes?
Takashi Miike's "The Box"
is the most artistic of the 3,
yet sadly, it's the least extreme.
For those who know his work, you will be thoroughly disappointed.
For those who don't know his work (good for you, you may enjoy this)
he is the most extreme of the extreme.
So Extreme "Showtime" wouldn't air his episode of "Masters of Horror" due to graphic content.
(Interesting Side Note:
"Showtime does however play "Ichi the Killer" & "Gozu" - Go Figure)
Anyway he's a cult favorite in both America and his native Japan.
The guy practically screams "extreme" from hemisphere to hemisphere,
so naturally, he seemed like a shoe-in for this project.
Regretfully though, his installment is totally not "Miike"
But since you don't know of his work, it should be fine.
Whatever the case may be....
This ghost tale revolves around 2 Sisters (Sound Familiar?)
Both of whom fall in love with their dance instructor.
The one sister becomes jealous when she finds the other is intimately involved with the trainer, so naturally she locks her sister in a box to keep her safe. (Sounds Rational)
- Loads of artsy atmosphere, gorgeous settings, and enough chills to keep you on ice; but ulimately none of that could save me from the impending confusion, and dare-I-say, boredom that ensued.
- Maybe if you've never seen a "Miike" film before you'll enjoy this one, or maybe if you still like "Ringu" you'll get a kick out of it.
But for
when I order Wheat, I don't want rye.(If you catch my drift)
MORAL OF THE STORY:
Youth has its price
Fame has its price
Love has its price
These are the 3 Extremes
Movie Review: Consistently Interesting
Summary: 4 Stars
I'm feeling lazy tonight, so perhaps this will be a short one. '3 Extremes' is, unsurprisingly an anthology of three short horror films, one Korean, one Japanese, and one from Hong Kong. This sounds like a good idea to me, cause lots of Asian horror films don't have enough material to justify their length. I should point out that the term horror is used pretty loosely here, with none of them really qualifying as a conventional horror film, even by Asian standards.
The first film is 'Dumplings', directed by Fruit Chan. This film is, to be blunt, disgusting. I mean this not as a criticism, just as a simple observation. The film centers on a peculiar sort of dumpling which can reverse the aging process. It's impossible to discuss this in any meaningful way without giving away the meat of it, so here it is: The dumplings contain human fetuses. Now, I was not especially impressed or disturbed by this premise when I first heard it, but actually watching it it proves to be very nasty. The film doesn't have that much going on in terms of plot, though it does note the fact that anyone who is willing to eat aborted fetuses is liable to do some other unfortunate acts.
'Cut', directed by Chan-Wook Park is next, and it's my favorite. Park directed the great 'Oldboy', and here he again sets himself apart from most Asian directors I'm familiar with by displaying energy and wit. So much Asian horror is unrelentingly slow-paced and dreary, it's nice to see something with lotsa camera movement and over the top acting and so on. This film centers on a home invasion by a disgruntled actor who assails a prominent horror film director and his wife. It has an interesting twist however, in that the actor is not just jealous of the director's success, but he's also a good, upstanding man. (He says something like, 'My life sucks, and I'm going to hell. Where's the justice in that?) His goal is not just to torment the director, but also to degrade him, make him compromise his morals. The actor is very amusing to watch, pretty funny, very full of life, likable in spite of it all, and he's matched by the energetic camerawork and cluttered, brightly colored set.
'Box', directed by Takashi Miike, is the last and most conventional film of the bunch. It is very slow moving and elegant focusing on mood along with a few surprises. The plot concerns a grown woman who used to be part of a sideshow act where she and her sister would perform, culminating in their curling up within a box. Turns out something rather bad happened to her sister, and she's now haunted by memories and dreams. This film isn't terribly compelling, but it's short enough that it never gets boring, and it is pleasant to look at, and has a number of effective creepy scenes. The final revelation is not especially impressive, but it ain't too bad either and doesn't feel like a cheat or that it's needlessly tacked on, so it works alright. I don't doubt that this film would be interesting to view a second time simply for the sake of looking at it all in a new light.
Yeah, I'm done. None of these films is brilliant, but they're certainly interesting, and they combine nicely in spite of their difference from one another. Worth a look, definitely.
Grade: B
Movie Review: Disturbing but Oddly Mezmerizing
Summary: 4 Stars
As said in the other reviews, this full is an omnibus of three shorter films by some of Asia's most talented horror directors. Park Chanwook, Takashi Miike, and Fruit Chan are the three contributing directors.
The first film, in the American release, is Fruit Chan's piece, and as a whole, it is the most accomplished film. The story never drifts into murky terrirory, and the characters' motivations are never far from clear. Oh, and this is also probably the hardest piece to watch. You will cringe at the sight of dumplings for some time.
But what makes this film so great is that it is a true representation of what a horror film should do: shock while making a broad social commentary. Here, the commentary seems to be about the stagnant culture in China, of men who view women as objects, and what the women will go to to redeem themselves in the men's eyes. One of the characters in the story, the leads husband, has an affair behind her back. On the surface, this is just about the least reprehensible act in the whole movie. But stop and think. What must be noted is that it is this character's acts that lead every other plot point to fruition. Even though you may be disgusted by the last scenes, try to remember the husband, and where everything started.
The second film is the worst, although that isn't necessarily saying much. Park Chanwook, best known here for Oldboy and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, is assuredly not at his peak here. Still, his penchant for flashy cuts makes this a far more interesting piece than it would have been in the hands of another director. It begins promisingly enough, with essentially a debate about the class struggle in Korea mixed with torture by way of piano wire and some nast bits of fingers chopped off. But soon, it slips into territory where the characters are no longer justified, and their actions have no connection to real life. By the end, it can only be called confusing and repugnant. To bad that a talent such as Park's should be wasted on this.
The last film, by Takashi Miike, is indeed strange. Descriptions will hardly do it justice. Most importantly, it should be mentioned that as an actual film, it is a failure. It is obvious that the director has some overwhelming message here, but unlike Dumplings, where the message was obvious, or Cut, where it was clear that the dialogue would convey the message and the plot would simply be gory excess, this is neither. In fact, dialogue is close to minimum. This should come as a shock to Miike fans. It is vastly different from his other films, like Ichi the Killer. The closest it comes to is Audition. But this film has a minimum of violence. Instead, it is a haunting allegory for childhood terror. Miike himself has claimed that he was trying to convey his own fear of being trapped in his body by symbolically having the title character trapped in the box. Still, this is far from satisfactory. You must draw you own conclusions.
And if you just want to see some of the most shocking stuff the screen has to offer, this is as good a place as any to sit down for an hour or two. Maybe you might even start to think about the social commentary, too, while you're at it.
Movie Review: 3 steps up
Summary: 4 Stars
Stuff like this makes me question if it's possible it could ever be made in America. Sure, we have David Lynch, Guy Maddin, even David Cronenberg, adding to our wonderful world of extremely disturbing for the sake of disturbing filmmaking, but could they go to this level? Or am I being unfair to say that this is a different level? It could be the same intent with a different approach...
We have three segments, each "extreme" in their own way. The first, a shockingly gross-out horror film involving foetophagia (pardon me my neologism if there happens to be a real word for said consumption out there), is about all the wonder in blood and gross biological matter you can possibly compress into gut-churning madness. Too bad it doesn't really have much more to it than that, because honestly once you get over the initial "gut" reaction, there's not much more to care about... no spectacular cinematography, nothing really amazing in performances... no real reason to be a movie as opposed to a photograph, a written story, a bad tale told over candlelight. I'll just pretend it's all symbolic of the current issue over stem-cell research and leave it at that.
The second segment, by the wonderful Park Chan-Wook of Oldboy fame, gets a little better. Our little friend Park has an eye for torture, I see, as now it involves a movie director and his wife tied to his own house-like set, a disturbed extra putting him through physical and emotional turmoil. This one has no long-winded development of psychological torture-by-hypnotism, this is straight out lose-if-you-do, lose-if-you-don't. The focus on the stagelighting and the levels of truth and deceit make it an interestingly post-modern look at spectatorship, as now these characters are forced to look at each other take up and remove their costumes in a twisted dynamic. Too bad that theme isn't really developed much more than just being there, because again, this film has a little bit less in terms of cinema. It has some neat tricks here and there, just nothing to write home about.
The third segment, and my favorite, is from my man the amazing Takashi Miike of Ichi the Killer fame. A much more atmospheric and involving film, indeed, this is the story of a woman who dreams fitfully about her accidental murder of her twin sister at the age of ten, with a slightly more complex plot invovling a circus performer and pedophilia. Mostly films that turn out to be "just a dream" are kind of disappointing, but this has something fresh to add to the group. It also has the most to offer cinematically, with real care put into editing, production design, imagery, juxtaposition, and whatever possible to embellish mood. Of all the segments, this is the most artsy and lovely, and really a good end to round up the features we've been subjected to.
Overall, don't expect to eat comfortably after viewing this film. Not gonna work out well. I wouldn't expect the most amazing stuff awaiting you, but on the other hand if you're the type to be absolutely fascinated by the places the human mind will go, see how you handle this. The Marquis de Sade would be proud.
--PolarisDiB
Movie Review: one will do for beauty.
Summary: 4 Stars
Watched "Three... Extremes" last night, and it was insanely good. All three stories I thought were very thought provoking, and again a little frustrating.
First of all, I thoroughly enjoyed the juxtaposition of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese cultures, and I hope to see more in the future. What would I recommend for future CKJ trilogy releases? Horror might be the genre to stick with, maybe something set in medieval Asia, warlord style. Maybe something with Genghis Khan and Francis Ford Coppola vampires.
Dumplings (5.0) Fruit Chan, director of Public Toilet
I was impress by the shock value in the first installment. I agree, some of the scenes strike the nerve like cold lightning, but I wanted more shock. There seemed to be a lot voodoo floating around, what with the cursed fetus and all, but it pretty much went over my head. I have to admit, I'm not up to speed with Chinese voodoo. Unlike the latter two short films, Dumplings features select scenes taken from a longer full-length movie. I think watching the whole movie would fill in some of the holes where I was plain lost. What are these dumplings supposed to do? Why don't they work? Who are these people?
Cut (4.0) Chan-Wook Park, director of Oldboy
The Korean installment features some lengthy sermons. The villain goes off ranting about the nature of society, so on and so forth, as the bound Byung-Hun Lee listens helplessly. I got kind of bored by the speeches myself, but after THREE EXTREMES was over, I realized that I liked Cut the best out of the three. It reminded me of the existential plays that Tom Stoppard used to write. The symmetrical film has four characters, two of which are bound and gagged. The weird, absurd situation produces a cozy environment where we can explore both the humor and terror behind psychosis. As Sartre said himself, hell is other people.
Box (3.0) Takashi Miike, director of Iishi the Killer, Audition, Visitor Q
I have a feeling that Miike is the main reason most people watch THREE EXTREMES. Besides, who really prefers Chinese or Korean movies over Japanese film anyway? Box is slow and quiet. That's all well and good, but during the whole installment I was waiting with breathless anticipation for needle-point shock. I'm sad to say that, there is no shock. Most of the terror comes from hidden uneasiness as opposed to in-your-face grotesqueness. I really wanted to see the bag monster from Audition. Thus "Box" gets a lot more interpretive than I had hoped for, and that means it gets boring. I am also not a fan of Atsuro Watabe, the male lead. His acting is annoying, and more often than not gets on my nerves more than the coat-hanger does.
Therefore this film only went extremes with two directors not all three. In conclusion I felt it deserved a four. The acting, cinematography, direction, and the conceptual aspects was great. Highly recommend for foreign film lovers.