Watch Three... Extremes For Free

Simply A Masterpiece

Redundant and unnecessary.

Must See Movie...

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Three stories told by emerging Asian directors.The Good Stor(ies)-Dumplings-Finally fearing the advances of age, a middle-aged housewife seeks the advice of a local chef renowned for her curative and seemingly magical dumplings. When the strange dish starts to work, the two begin spending an increasing amount of time together which finally lets her in on the gruesome secret to it's spicy flavor. Overall this was easily the best of the three and really the only one with any kind of merit. The main part of this one is based on the concept of her appearance against the stereotype, which manages to get some great work out of the burgeoning mystery of what she uses to prepare the dish. Once this is finally unveiled and there's the whole truth revealed, it manages to utilize this quite well with the actual revelation sequence coming off as a wholly intense and disturbing sequence that really feels like it gets away with a lot as it's quite a dark and chilling explanation. While the rest of this isn't all that great, especially all the adultery angles throughout here which aren't all that interesting by taking up a large portion of time to get to a mild-mannered resolution, this is still the best part about this whole effort.The Bad Stor(ies)-Cut-Returning home from a movie shoot, a big-time director finds himself and his wife kidnapped and held hostage on the movie set by a deranged extra. Forcing him into a series of extremely brutal games, he gradually begins to uncover the real reason behind the encounter. This one was just lame and completely unworthwhile as the biggest factor against this is the main plot for it. It's simply not scary as the rationale is so inherently stupid it's a wonder it made it through to the final approval, the purpose of performing the capture and torture just don't make sense and the whole thing could've been ended on numerous occasions without any harm done had there been more interest in removing himself from the situation without regard for his captors' well-being. Still more flawed is the fact that this one then spends an indefinite amount of time recounting a series of grievances against each other doesn't tend to make this move along at the briskest of paces. Likewise, the fact that this is billed as having him torture them for their behavior and position in society then skimps out on the torture leaving only the impact of their final retribution against him as the only gory bit in the whole story just seems completely infallible. All in all, this was a truly terrible segment.Box-Tormented by strange dreams, a woman begins to feel as though her twin sister has come back from the dead to haunt her. Trying to find the confidence to shake off the experience, she finds her closer than she initially expected. Once again, this is another just truly outright terrible segment as the main focus here is again completely removed from horror. The only real interesting part of this is the back-story explanation for their situation as the two sisters performing a ballerina routine succumb to jealousy from misappropriated preference towards their father and the resulting encounter one day unleashing an accident that consumes one in a hellish blaze, but beyond that this is just so slow that it's agonizing to get through yet is the quickest one running time. The long sections of wordless moments that pass by are just dull and lifeless, and there's even less to like about once this tries to become interesting as what happens isn't really horror anyway. This is a curious and questionable inclusion that really lowers this considerably.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Language, Brief Nudity, a mild sex scene, strong themes of incest and pre-natal mutilation.

Three...Extremes is an anthology of three horror films by three respected Asian directors. "Dumplings" - Directed by Fruit Chan In Dumplings, an actress who has entered middle age and begun to lose the attention of her husband to an affair with a younger woman visits Aunt Mei, an old woman who still has the looks of her youth. Aunt Mei has a secret recipe that makes anyone look years younger, but such an unnatural benefit comes from a truly abominable source. I found Dumplings to be absolutely stomach-churning. A horror movie that doesn't even attempt to scare you, but actually tries (and succeeds, in my case) to horrifying you. Not for the squeamish. Even the sound effects eventually became almost more than I could bear. Disturbing and entertaining. - 8/10"Cut" - Directed by Chan-wook Park A talented director and his wife are taken captive by a murderous, utterly insane movie extra. Cut is darkly comedic, utterly absurd, and far more meta than the other movies in this collection. It took me a while to figure out whether I liked it or not, but by the end of the segment, I was won over. Like Dumplings, Cut isn't frightening in the conventional sense. Instead, it's flat-out zany (in a good way). - 7/10"Box" - Directed by Takashi Miike The most haunting of the three segments. Box is about a jealousy-fueled tragic accident involving two young sisters. The surviving sibling suffers from suffocating (literally) dreams and disturbing visions of her deceased sibling, even years later as an adult. Box is probably the creepiest of the three, and it has a psycho-sexual aspect to it that makes the whole thing even more unsettling. Definitely more of an atmospheric, "mood" movie than the other two. - 8/10I liked all three segments, as well as the movie as a whole. I found Dumplings to be the most effective/entertaining, but I recommend the entire anthology. The three short films are not only memorable and very different from one another, but they're also fairly unique among the other horror movies that I've seen. Overall - 8/10

I want to first say, thank goodness this is not one contiguous movie! If it were, I be running for the NoDoz! The first story exposes the twist about dumplings in 2 minutes and then it's really boring beyond belief. Photography is great, but man is this movie slow on exposition. and that's because it's a one trick pony. It's 35 minute length felt like a full 2 hour feature!Number two starts as a blood sucking film which in reality is a film within a film. A director comes home, passes out and wakes up in a horror movie all his own. Again. Looks good, but sort of boring. It's kind of been done before. And again, it goes on and on with little point.Number 3 is Box. Woman plays a music box and sees her dead sister. Sound compelling?I honestly think people reading this are too bust reading the subtitles to get that it's really not that great a compilation. Even if this were a TV movie, it wouldn't be that good.

I guess the best thing that this trilogy has going for it is that each piece is somewhat open-ended, with no neat resolution for any of the parts. So, there is definitely room for interpretation and some of these images will certainly linger.Most perplexing for me was the second selection, "Cut." Actually, I have done a search all over the web and I have found no one else mentioning the significance of a female passenger who, in a single shot, is riding with the director on his way home from the studio, only to disappear as he arrives home and never to be brought up again. I mention this because it would suggest that the entire sequence is either a dream, or hallucinatory. I keep looking back at the sequence and wondering if it is his wife...and if she is dead. It is very hard to tell. But someone is definitely there. The final scene setting is actually too contrived to be real (having the blender both at home and on the set, and the way the wife and characters are suspended, for example). I do not see how an extra would have the craft and expertise to set up the studio a la "Saw." It certainly is gruesome.Sorry, but episode 1, "DUmplings," was just plain revolting. I had won ton soup for dinner tonight, and fortunately the won tons did not crunch. I will say this, the concept of cannibalism has never been made to look so tasty. I mean, the food preparation scenes reminded me a bit of "Eat Drink, Man, Woman," until you learn that is what is being served. That is perverse enough in its own rite.I liked the last segment, "Box," the best and the end would have been more satisfying if the present-day scenes before it would have been more honest. While the twist was nice, nothing would lead one to believe that there was a true sister act at play all through the movie. Still, I did love the atmosphere of the piece.Normally, I would rate this trilogy higher, as it is certainly well-made. But, as I wrote, they all seemed flawed. More like ideas-in-progress than finished pieces. Then again, maybe that was the point.