I saw this Asian trilogy of terror a couple days ago with my buds, the Oscillator and Mr. VMU. The Oscillator was impressed by the Japanese one. Mr. VMU liked the Chinese one. My favorite was the Korean one. That makes three viewers, each liking a different segment of the trilogy. As a litmus test, it just goes to show that different people are always coming from different perspectives. Without a doubt, THREE EXTREMES will elicit three distinct reactions from your tripartite gut. What else would you expect from a trilogy where each short film comes from a different country?<br /><br />First of all, I thoroughly enjoyed the juxtaposition of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese cultures, and I hope to see more in the future. What would I recommend for future CKJ trilogy releases? Horror might be the genre to stick with, maybe something set in medieval Asia, warlord style. Maybe something with Genghis Khan and Francis Ford Coppola vampires. But before I get carried away, I had better check whether THREE EXTREMES made money at the box office. I'm supposing that it did not.<br /><br />Dumplings (6.0) Fruit Chan, director of Public Toilet<br /><br />Both the Oscillator and Mr. VMU were impressed by the shock value in the first installment. I agree, some of the scenes strike the nerve like cold lightning, but I wanted more shock. There seemed to be a lot voodoo floating around, what with the cursed fetus and all, but it pretty much went over my head. I have to admit, I'm not up to speed on my Chinese voodoo. Unlike the latter two short films, Dumplings features select scenes taken from a longer full-length movie. I think watching the whole movie would fill in some of the holes where I was plain lost. What are these dumplings supposed to do? Why don't they work? Who are these people?<br /><br />Cut (8.0) Chan-Wook Park, director of Oldboy<br /><br />The Korean installment features some lengthy sermons. The villain goes off ranting about the nature of society, so on and so forth, as the bound Byung-Hun Lee listens helplessly. I got kind of bored by the speeches myself, but after THREE EXTREMES was over, I realized that I liked Cut the best out of the three. It reminded me of the existential plays that Tom Stoppard used to write. The symmetrical film has four characters, two of which are bound and gagged. The weird, absurd situation produces a cozy environment where we can explore both the humor and terror behind psychosis. As Sartre said himself, hell is other people.<br /><br />Box (7.0) Takashi Miike, director of Iishi the Killer, Audition, Visitor Q<br /><br />I have a feeling that Miike is the main reason most people come to watch THREE EXTREMES. Besides, who really prefers Chinese or Korean movies over Japanese film anyway? Box is slow and quiet. That's all well and good, but during the whole installment I was waiting with breathless anticipation for needle-point shock. I'm sad to say that, there is no shock. Most of the terror comes from hidden uneasiness as opposed to in-your-face grotesqueness. I really wanted to see the bag monster from Audition. Thus "Box" gets a lot more interpretive than I had hoped for, and that means it gets boring. I am also not a fan of Atsuro Watabe, the male lead. His acting is annoying, and more often than not gets on my nerves more than the coat-hanger does.<br /><br />JY<br /><br />Jimboduck-dot-com