Three... Extremes

Saam Gaang yi (2004), Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan

Synopsis

Three… Extremes is an Asian cross-cultural trilogy of horror films from three accomplished Asian directors of three different Asian countries. The movie is the second installment of the proposed series of two films, following its particularly well-achieved antecessor Three (2002). From the point of view of the viewer, Three...Extremes (or Three, Monster) had for objective to provide an improved installment of three segments, a task considered to be partly complicated given the many brilliant elements present in the previous compilation, but in the other hand plausibly realistic given the inexistent balance that Three failed to find. Three…Extremes comprises as indicated before three segments: Dumplings by Fruit Chan (Hong Kong), Cut by Park Chan-Wook (South Korea) and Box by Takashi Miike (Japan). With the movie clearly intended to heavily rely on two of the most promising names in the current Asian horror scene, Three... Extremes would be considered to be clearly superior, achieving the success that Three was never able to attain. The movie clearly reaches for the extreme that exists within the viewer, for our greatest fears, obsessions, repulsions, superbly bringing out the worst inside every single human being.

Review

Dumplings is the first segment of the film, introducing the viewer to the story of Mrs. Lee (Miriam Yeung), an aging movie star who has long ago lost the attention of her husband and has therefore decided to visit Aunt Mei (Bai Ling), an old woman who still has the looks of her youth due to a secret disturbing and gruesome ingredient in her own dumplings recipe. For those who are not familiarized with the work of Fruit Chan, up to the movie release and with the exception of the present segment, the director's filmography predominantly considered particularly uninteresting plots with prostitution and other problems of the modern Hong Kong society as its main backgrounds. Dumplings starts promptly, with the viewer being introduced in the first five minutes of the film, to the special ingredient in Aunt Mei’s dumplings recipes.  The director clearly does not fear to shock the viewer, being at this precise point that Fruit Chain clearly reinvents himself. Still focusing in previously developed work, with a dark satire of elements of the Hong Kong society, Dumpling provides a noteworthy clin d'oeil to a large range of social issues such as incest, the gap between social classes, the detrimental obsession with youth, immigration and clandestine abortions.  A brilliant nerve-racking soundtrack by Chan Kwong-wing is accompanied by a veritable parade of disturbing sounds and noises orchestrating a disquieting atmosphere, giving the film a tremendously well-achieved audible character and surely providing a constant feeling of repulsion. A 90-minute version of the segment was released in the same year, with a different twist at the end, and allowing Fruit Chan to explore a high number of elements that were somehow undervalued in the short story.

Cut describes the story of a filmmaker (Lee Byung-hun) kidnapped by a figurant/extra (Lim Won-hee) of a few of his previous movies, to whom is given the opportunity of saving his wife (Gang Hye-jung) by killing an innocent child. The genius previously observed in Park Chan-wook work (Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, Oldboy) is once more registered in the present brilliantly executed segment. The film follows in a distorted "quest for revenge" schema, reminding the viewer in some ways of the Vengeance Trilogy of the same director. Based upon a surrealistic reality, the film is most likely defined as an unclear voyage inside the mind of the protagonist, into an intriguing environment of uncertainty and terror where, beyond psychosis, the existing sporadic humor (particularly displaced and absurd), only leads to further confusion. Visually stunning and with a correct use of colour and light, Cut includes a few creatively executed scenarios, although for the majority of the movie, the action is claustrophobically confined to one single set. Cut culminates beautifully in a fatal climax, where the reality and the reality that the protagonist appears to see collapse in an abysmal emotional density. The short film is without a doubt a brilliant masterpiece and considered to be the best segment of the trilogy.

Kyoko (Kyoko Kasegawa) is a writer tormented by the accidental death of her twin sister, when they both had only ten years old. One day, the main protagonist discovers in her desk an invitation for a meeting in the exact same place where her sister died. The work of the controversial director Takashi Miike is long (Audition, Ichi the Killer, Visitor Q), shining in a considerably large range of themes. The film mixes in a particularly exacerbated way dream and reality, tending to be somehow confusing, and giving the viewer a certain insecurity concerning the direction of plot. Miike succeeds however to toast the viewer with a particularly outstanding camera-work, characteristic and constantly well-achieved during the film, with a few shooting elements consistent with the final twist and interesting visual effects that generate a suffocating atmosphere due in part to the disturbing horror felt by the protagonist. All in all, I tend to believe that Box represents in some ways the filmography of Takashi Miike in one single word: irregular. Therefore, although being considered in general a satisfying concise work, Box could clearly have been developed in a more brilliant way as Takashi Miike as previously proven to be capable of.