My First Review - The Three Extremes

Winner of Best film at Taiwan’s golden horse film festival

I have never been a huge fan of horror. In fact, to be totally honest I am a complete wimp, especially when it comes to gore. So it was with some trepidation that I sat down to watch the three extremes, a box set of three short films by Asia’s masters of horror, Fruit Chan (Hong Kong), Park Chan-Wook (Korea) and Takashi Miike (Japan).

The first of these films in the set is an abridged version of Fruit Chan’s hit film Dumplings. Unlike the other two films, this is far from a conventional horror. There is no monster, no out and out villain, just an ordinary woman, trying to save her failing marriage and keep her fading youth. And this is what makes the film special, and why it is, in many ways, the most disturbing of the three.
The story follows middle-aged housewife Mrs Lee, whose rich husband has lost interest in her, and whose television acting career has ended. Desperate to reclaim her lost youth she visits the irrepressible Aunt Mei (a perfectly pitched performance by Chinese actress Bai Ling), known to be an expert on the more distasteful side of Chinese medicine. She goes there in hope of tasting Aunt Mei’s infamous dumplings, said to be the ultimate cure for aging. I won’t spoil it by telling you what goes into the dumplings, but I think it is enough to say that I nearly turned off the film when she ate the first one, and I only had a faint suspicion of the contents.
Fruit Chan most definitely cements his reputation as a great director with this film. The casting is spot on, the performances pitch perfect and the camera work is achingly beautiful (but with Australian master cinematographer Christopher Doyle behind the camera this was to be expected). The soundtrack of traditional Chinese lullabies adds the final touch to the beautiful, haunting, terrifying world he creates. Never is this more evident than in the final scene, which will stand out for years to come as one of the most disturbing scenes ever created.

Park-Chan Wook’s segment, Cut, is the most traditional of the three films. It documents the terrifying ordeal of a director who finds himself and his wife kidnapped by an insane extra who, jealous of the fact that the director is handsome, rich, successful, happy and worst of all, a genuinely nice person, sets up a test to prove that goodness is nothing more than a lack of need to do evil. The disturbing thing about this film is that it is genuinely, laugh out loud funny. The ridiculous, over the top acting of the extra, and the dance routines really are funny. But at the same time, you know you’re laughing at the suffering of innocent people. However the sudden change of pace towards the end feels almost as though we’re watching a different, much more conventional, film.

Director Park Chan-Wook has achieved critical acclaim in recent years for his dark thrillers such as Old Boy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, but only glimmers of this greatness show through here. However it is enough. The film is well made, with a good script and the beautiful cinematography that has become associated in recent years with oriental film making.

The last film was the one I was most dreading, and interestingly the film I most enjoyed. Box is the offering of notorious Japanese director Takashi Miike. Miike has earned a reputation for extreme violence with films like Audition and Ichi the killer. However he puts this aside in favour of a bleak, disjointed, dream-like segment.
It tells the story of haunted writer Kyoko, who used to be a contortionist in the circus, and who is haunted by the terrible accident which killed her twin sister and for which she was partly responsible. The locations are exquisite, from the writer’s bare flat, to the circus tent, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. The solitary tree, alone in the snowy landscape harks back to earlier Japanese films, when images of the beauty of nature for beauty’s sake were common.
From any other director the plot twist at the end would be corny, but Miike handles it with a delicacy that is quite unexpected. The final image of Kyoko and Shoto will stay with you long after the film has ended.
While it lacks the gruesome beauty of Dumplings, or the dark humour of Cut, Box is in many ways the best film. Its disturbing exploration of the nature of privacy and nightmares handled with such delicate care that you are swept along by it. You find yourself entering the mind of Kyoko. You share her jealousy of her 10 year old sister’s relationship with the ring master, her horror when she realises what she has done, and most of all her fear.

Three unusual films, presented in an unusual way, but despite being so different, the trilogy does not jar, but flows elegantly from one film to the next. Well worth seeing even if you don’t enjoy horror.

Five Stars