Three Extremes Year: 2004 Director: Fruit Chan, Chan-wook Park, Takashi Miike Written by: Lilian Lee, Chan-wook Park, Haruko Fukushima Threat: Witch doctor, Psychopath Weapon of Choice: Axe, Fire IMDb page:

Other movies in this series:
none

Rish's Reviews
I went to a double-bill at the local revival house, playing this and Japan's Kairo, aka Pulse. I was a little wary of going to see these, since I freely admit I'm ignorant of Asian culture, and often struggle with subtitles. My friend--not a Horror fan, but an Asian cinema fan--said he was willing to check it out, so we set off. As we stood in line, I glanced at the Three Extremes poster out front, where a reviewer had called it "the sickest, most twisted film you'll see all year." Yikes.
Well, I did have nightmares that night, but oddly enough, they were unrelated to the movies we saw.
Three Extremes (or Three . . . Extremes, as it may be called), aka Saam gaang yi is an anthology film, but unusual for one. It contains three stories, each from a different Asian country, in Chinese, Korean, Japanese. It was also called Three, Monster, as both titles were shown at the end.
The first tale, "Dumplings," by Fruit Chan, is about as revolting as they come, and translated very well, even with subtitles. It told of a woman (Bai Ling), who makes a very special kind of dumpling that have rejuvenative qualities for vain female customers. The main ingredient is . . . unusual, to say the least. The second tale, "Cut," by Park Chan-wook, tells of a movie director who is taken hostage by a crazed stranger. Or is he a stranger? The third tale, "Box," by Miike Takashi, tells of a young writer with a dark past and the ghosts that still continue to haunt her.
I don't have a tremendous lot to say about the film, which partly comes from having seen it in a theatre, where I can't take notes (but is still a better place to see horror movies). I do like anthologies, since many stories are often better suited for a short film than a long one (which reminds me, I had an idea last night before I went to bed to challenge tyranist to a short story writing contest where we each wrote a horror tale that ended with the line, "But I don't have a dog." I giggled with delight in coming up with the disturbing plot, and suddenly I realised that there just wasn't enough material in "But I don't have a dog" for a full story. It's more like the punchline of a joke*, and I never told him about it), and the filmmaking was high-quality and colourful.
Three Extremes was more Western in its storytelling than was Pulse. But the third story, "Box," was just surreal as hell. Odd, since it was the one made by the Japanese, who are supposed to be the most Western of the Asian nations.
"Dumplings" is also a full-length movie, cut down by half for inclusion in this collection (not sure why anyone would do that, though, unless Fruit Chan made it for this, but had enough material to release a longer cut later). It was VERY gross, boys and girls. There was a lot of nervous laughter in the audience, and if someone had bolted for the nearest toilet, I couldn't have blamed them.
My favourite of the three stories was "Cut," which was cruel and sick, but also somewhat amusing, in a damning sort of way. The actress in "Box" was incredibly beautiful. Wow. That segment was made by the director of Audition, which tyranist and I saw together recently. I enjoyed this one more.
I'd Recommend It To: If you like anthologies, horror, and Asian cinema, well, then this was sort of made for you, wasn't it?
*Okay, how about this? The guy staying at the rich man's house tells him how he didn't sleep very well because the damn dog kept jumping up on the bed and humping him. The rich man blinks and says, "Dog? . . ."
Posted: March 8, 2006

Total Skulls: 15

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?