3 Extremes
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Movie Reviews of 3 Extremes
Movie Review: Dumplings is worth seeing but that's it.
Summary: 2 Stars
So there was a lot of hype around this movie and the reviews for it were pretty stellar. The one that hooked me stated "Maybe the sickest flick I've seen all year". Luckily I rented it as opposed to seeing it in the theater. The first story is "Dumplings", and when you consider that it's about eating human fetus' to stay young. That is pretty twisted! And "Dumplings" is an entertaining, and interesting, and sick story! But scary it is not.
The second story is "Cut". It's about a director who, along with his wife is kidnapped by a psychopathic extra who is mad at the director because his life is so perfect. He wants the director to kill a little girl who later turns out to be a boy. We think it's the psycho's boy but we are never told for sure. The longer the director goes without killing the boy, the more fingers the psycho cuts from his wifes hands. By the way his wife is a pianist. It ends with thew wife biting the man to death. But then the husband kills her becuase he is confused and thinks his wife is the boy, and the boy is his wife. There was no reason or explanation offered for his confusion or maybe he did it on purpose because he wanted his wife dead all along. Regardless I didn't think it was a good ending.
The last story is "Box". This one I thought was just flat out boring! There are some scary moments in this one but it's not interesting and it has another stupid ending that makes no sense.
All in all, I think "Dumplings" is worth seeing. "Cut" is OK but certainly not a must see, and "Box" is all fast forward material!
Movie Review: 2 stars for "3 Extremes"
Summary: 2 Stars
I was looking forward to seeing this film due to the good reviews I'd heard and the sterling reputations of Takashi Miike and Park Chan-Wook (I'd never heard of Fruit Chan before), but I was very disappointed. Miike's "Box" is the best of the bunch, a surreal psychological portrait of guilt with a startling image at the end. Chan's "Dumplings" is an obvious, simplistic morality play with an ending I could see from a mile away. (I wonder if it plays better for Chinese speakers. It occured to me that this segment could function as a commentary on China's "one child" policy, but this is not evident from the subtitles.) Park's "Cut" is a bizarre set piece that provoked much discussion among the people I saw it with about exactly what happened and what it meant; the only thing we could all agree on was that this contrived mess wasn't worth the energy of the debate.Movie Review: MAJOR SUCK FEST
Summary: 1 Stars
I barely made it through this dvd and when it was over I rolled my eyes and shelved it. The trilogy of films on this dvd are just plain silly. "Dumplings" is ridiculous. It's a story about a fetus-munching woman. The slow, deliberate 'crunch, crunch, crunching' of fetal bone is over emphasized and almost comic. The second story has the usual twitchy Asian lunatic torturing and punishing. And the third story is forgettable.
Please do not waste your money or your time on this DVD. If you want to watch truly incredible Asian films, I recommend A Tale of Two Sisters, OldBoy, Dark Water and The Eye 1 and 2. If you want to watch a movie with truly vile moments in it, watch Audition. If the sight of a lovely young woman vomitting into a dog dish and feeding it to a starving man she keeps tied up in a burlap sack doesn't make you queasy, I don't know what will. And that's just ONE of the nauseating scenes in Audition. Don't watch it if you have a weak stomach. Seriously.
3 Extremes II and III are mostly boring with little or no shock value, with the exception of the story "Going Home" which is on 3 Extremes II. It stars the incredible Eugenia Yuan (Memoires of a Geisha, The Eye 2) and is a complex and bittersweet story. If you want to purchase one of the 3 Extremes movies, I recommend 3 Extremes II because of "Going Home". As for 3 Extremes III, I was not scared, disgusted, or moved in any way by this dvd. I am amazed at some of the other reviews that give this DVD a 5 star rating and comment on how horrible and frightening the 3 stories are. Guess those reviewers haven't watched OldBoy or Audition. Those two movies are NOT FOR CHILDREN.
Movie Review: Waste of time, waste of money
Summary: 1 Stars
These three movies are supposed to be like Asian "Twilight Zone" episodes but were just three very bloody disturbing movies. The first was Chinese and was about the extremes to which a woman would go to remain young and beautiful...(the secret's in the dumplings). It was actually well made but just plain gross. The second story was Korean and was about a young rich director (who happens to be a really nice guy) who is kidnapped by a man who tortures the director's wife in order to get the young man to confess to a sin. There must be some Korean philosophy here that doesn't really translate to the West ---that a rich man cannot be a good man...so if good man is rich, then he must be lying and hiding an awful secret. I didn't get it, but it was extremely violent and bloody and in my opinion had no point to it. The third story is Japanese and is about a woman who lives with the guilt that as a child she unintentionally caused the death of another little girl whom she was jealous of. It was a beautifully made movie and had a couple of eerie scenes in it, but there was absolutely no point to it. It was disturbing because the adult trainer of the girls (they were acrobats) seemed to be sleeping with the little girl he favored and gave her a necklace...but it seemed to imply that the other girl was jealous because she wanted the same 'attention' from the man (as well as a necklace). There was of course a twist at the end, but it made no sense. This DVD was a BIG waste of time and money!
*Parental Note*: This Dvd contains graphic violence, sadism, blood, gore, sex and just plain 'yuck'. If you let your kids see this movie you are a really bad parent!
Movie Review: OMGosh PLEASE don't buy this.
Summary: 1 Stars
The video rental stores around me seem to just be finding out about the popularity of Asian horror films. Up until now, no matter how good the film the would have only a copy or two. Now this crap comes out and they get a dozen copies. Why did they choose this one? Was it because of the directors? I don't know but this film is BAD!!!! It only got a 1 because I couldn't give it a zero. The editors review sums it up very well. You know right away what "Dumplings" is about and it is GROSS and not in any good way. The box mentions it, so I'm not ruining anything when I say that anyone pregnant should NOT watch this. Plus, as with the other films, it has it's "HUH?!" moments. "Cut" is the worst. Why? Because it's one of those films that's so good until at the end you go "WHAT THE..." I hate when that happens.
"Box" will only give you headaches, it makes no sense from the beginning until the end. It wants to scare, it wants to be an art house film and it's neither. This movie does a disservice to anyone just getting into Asian horror.