3 Extrêmes

Three Asian short stories by three excellent directors on a common theme human weaknesses. --- CUT (4/5) Chan-wook Park : A story that takes place in one “room". A crazy extra abducts a successful director and his wife, a virtuoso piano player. The husband is tied up in the corner, the wife to the piano. Every five minutes, the kidnapper cuts off one of the wife’s fingers until... Given the premise and that, from the director of Old Boy, you might expect a really hyped up story, full of twists and an atmosphere you can cut with a knife, which, to add to things, is rather similar to the beginning of the thriller, Saw. However, the whole thing seems like it formally flawlessly borrows from itself. --- BOX (4/5) Takeshi Miike : A successful writer is plagued by a recurring nightmare about how she killed her sister when she was a child. In my opinion this is the best piece of the entire triptych. A low-key study of the relationship between three people that surprisingly doesn’t contain any trace of Miike’s usual bizarreness. It might seem like a mistake to some people, but so far his work has always come across as being fascinating, if not actually good. The dark blue snowing atmosphere is captivating and almost horrifying. --- Dumplings (2/5) Fruit Chan : An ageing, once successful actress tries an unusual method of rejuvenation that involves eating dumplings stuffed with something strange. Unfortunately, this movie bored me from start to finish. The development of the story is completely obvious, and actually nothing much happens in it. If it were a fifteen minute short, then why not? But like this? No thanks. The only plus is the excellent Chin Wah in the main role. (03/04/2005)

I was quite surprised that the Asian peculiarity got to me again, but I must say that in terms of horror, the first film is simply better. Here are other stories that are definitely not bad, but atmospherically, only the last one is great, the others impress mainly with how different they are, how colorful they are, what stories they present, but they lack a truly horror atmosphere. However, Asians prove that the short genre is not a problem for them either. (09/03/2015)