Macabre…ish Horror Review: Three…Extremes

Three... Extremes, 2005/ 125 min

(Chinese: 三更2; Korean: 쓰리, 몬스터; Japanese: 美しい夜、残酷な朝)

This is the sequel to Three.

Dumplings directed by Fruit Chan.

•Mrs Li (Miriam Yeung) wants to rejuvenate her skin to win back her straying husband (Tony Leung Ka-fai) who has taken a mistress. So she visits Aunt Mei (Bai Ling) who claims to have a secret dumpling recipe and is herself much older than she appears. But Mrs. Li is disgusted when she finds out what that secret ingredient is. But she is desperate and eats the dumplings anyway. One dumpling is so potent that it even increases her libido but it gives her skin a fishy smell. Aunt Mei goes on the run from .the authorities and unable to get Mrs. Li her dumplings, so out of desperation, she decides to make them herself.

Cut directed by Park Chan-wook

A film director (Lee Byung-hun)and his wife (Kang Hye-jung) are kidnapped by a jealous, unhinged man (Im Won-hee) who regularly plays an extra and forced to play a deadly game. The wife, who is a pianist, is gagged and set up in a piano trap. The husband is ordered to strangle a girl he met on the way and if he stalls, the unhinged man is threatening to cut parts off of his wife, every five minutes. The director decides to stall with stories but it does not keep his wife’s fingers from getting cut off. He finally decides to strangle the girl and her wig falls off, uncovering her true identity and the director loses his mind just as his wife attacks the extra.

Box directed by Takashi Miike

A 25 year old former circus performer, Kyoko (Kyōko Hasegawa), is now a novelist with a publisher, Yoshii but she still struggles with nightmares about the circus. With her in the circus was her twin, Shoko (Yuu Suzuki), who Kyoko (Mai Suzuki) locked in a box over a fit of jealousy. When her former benefactor, Higata (Atsuro Watabe), who incidently could be Yoshii’s twin, tried to rescue Shoko, Kyoko violently attacked him and accidentally set the box on fire. Since then, Kyoko is wracked with guilt. Following an invitation to the circus, Higata lures and traps her in a bag which he puts in a box containing her sister’s ashes and he buries her. But Kyoko’s version of reality is skewed and disturbing.