Three ... Extremes (Chinese/Japanese/Korean)
What's that you say? You'd like to see work from a few Asian horror directors, but don't have time to watch three separate movies? Then "Three ... Extremes" is the sampler platter you're looking for! We have "Dumplings," from Hong Kong's Fruit Chan; Japan's Takashi Miike ("Audition," "Ichi the Killer") gives us "Box"; and our man in South Korea, Chan-wook Park ( "Oldboy" ), presents "Cut." Separately, none of these shorts is particularly noteworthy, though I can imagine "Dumplings" and "Cut" being expanded to feature-length. ("Box" is too simple and "Twilight Zone"-ish to sustain a lengthening, I think.) But together, they comprise a macabre anthology of mayhem that may be just the thing to satisfy your horror cravings. The films have nothing in common other than their genre and their continent of origin, which means their sequence can be altered. In fact, I believe the order has been changed since I watched them on a screener tape during the Sundance Film Fesival. I saw them as "Box," "Dumplings" and "Cut," and I liked that, as it put the best last and simplest first. I'm told now it goes "Dumplings," "Cut" and then "Box," but that sounds like a bad idea.
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