31 Days of Fright, Day 26: Three... Extremes

Welcome to day 26 of 31 Days of Fright here at Road To The Movies! In today's episode, Gabe checks out not one, not two, but...

THREE... EXTREMES
2004
Rated R

I don't know whether it's the lure of the ellipses or the enticement of the extreme, but after Thou Shalt Not Kill... Except and The Woman, a movie called Three... Extremes just seemed to make sense. That, and the fact that there's no way we could possibly say we've covered all the horror bases without giving due attention to that classic bastion of horror, the anthology. Oh, I know Jonathan reviewed Trick 'r Treat (Read that review HERE), but that was less an anthology than what could be termed "mosaic fiction," in that if you were to extract any one of the stories in Trick 'r Treat, the rest of the movie wouldn't make sense. What I'm talking about is a proper, traditional anthology. Horror could hardly exist without them.

From the folkloric roots of horror, to the works of every writer from Poe to King, to the controversial content of E.C. Comics and Eerie Publications, to shows like Night Gallery and Tales from the Crypt (the latter, of course, having been based on the aforementioned E.C. Comics), horror not only seems to be most at home in the shorter format, but also seems to enjoy company.

Three... Extremes is an international short-form horror anthology, featuring the work of three established icons (or, so I'm led to believe) of Asian cinema: Fruit Chan (Hong Kong), Chan-wook Park (South Korea), and Takashi Miike (Japan). Of the three directors, I am the least familiar with Fruit Chan, whom I had never heard of before watching this film. Still, I'll take the blurb-author's word that he's quite famous (at least, in Hong Kong).

This being an anthology, I'll review each segment individually, then finish with a summary of the presentation as a whole.

DUMPLINGS

As a first look at director Fruit Chan's work, Dumplings makes a solid impression. The performances are strong and he does a great job of setting the tone through imagery. The "big reveal" in this segment isn't much of a reveal at all, as it doesn't take much of a detective to deduce what the titular dumplings' secret ingredient is within the first few scenes, but as it turns out, that's really not the point of the story. More than anything, this is a morality tale that first asks the question, How far would you go to regain your youth?, and then, What would you become once you'd gone there? I don't think I'm the only one who will walk away thinking that - psychologically, at least - this segment set the bar of "extreme" quite high.

It should also be noted here that director Fruit Chan went on to direct a feature-length version of Dumplings. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little afraid to check it out.

CUT

Of these directors, I am the most familiar with Chan-wook Park's work, so I had high expectations here. Park doesn't disappoint, and the complex moral questions that made his Vengeance Trilogy so powerful are on full display. Park doesn't like to make things easy for either his characters or his viewers, and the question of what you would do if someone you loved was being punished for your goodness is one that will - like all of his previous works that I've seen - haunt me for quite some time.

BOX

Takashi Miike is a legend. If you look him up on IMDB, you will find that - as of this writing, at least - he has eighty-nine directorial credits in the last twenty-one years. Now, I will grant you that there's a bit of TV and video work mixed in there, but even taking that into consideration, he's unnaturally prolific. Not only that, but he has a reputation for actually being good at what he does. I speak of him by reputation because, though I know him and some of his more popular films by name, this is the first time I've actually watched something he made. I have to say that, though Chan's and Park's films certainly have their confusing elements, it's Miike who leaps fully over the edge and leaves me scratching my head at the end.

The overall direction of Box is rock solid. The performances are good, the atmosphere is creepy, and the cinematography is so artfully done that individual stills could be extracted and displayed as standalone works. Where it looses me is the story.

From the beginning, Miike is clearly keeping secrets. This is all well and good. This is horror, after all, and I don't mind knowing that something's coming, but not knowing what. It builds tension. Then, as the story unfolds, we're given bits and pieces of character and backstory, until we begin to feel like we finally understand what's going on and why. This is the point at which the director turns everything on its ear and we're left wondering, If this is where it was all going, what the hell did all that buildup mean?!? And what the hell was that weird incest scene about?!?

I have a feeling this is a cultural thing, because there's a logical process at work here that I just can't seem to wrap my brain around. As I said before, all three of these segments have bits where I have to just shrug and say to myself, Maybe you need to be Asian, but nowhere are those bits more integral to the story than in Box.

Overall, Three... Extremes seems to work pretty well as a contiguous whole. I feel that - though they may have erred in putting the most "extreme" segment first - the progression from moral horror to moral uncertainty to total, what-the-fuck uncertainty flowed pretty well and left me not only shocked and entertained, but also reflective. Much like the oh-so-sinister dumplings, though Three... Extremes is presented in bite-sized bits, there's some real meat there.

7.5/10

-GABE


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