Three Extremes

made me wanna watch one piece after xD good stuff tho we preferred the first serving dumplingss but overall they swerved up well and curled toes in right places nice dose of J-psyche

I can not recommend this collection of short films highly enough- for anybody that loves the beauty that can lie within the horror genre, but also for anybody that appreciates great stories and exquisite film-making.

The marketing, and indeed the title may be misleading as this is less a collection of 'horror films' and more a trilogy of shorts that are poetically haunting.

Fruit Chan's Dumplings- the first of the bunch is the blackest of comedies that may just have you reeling from its truly sickening concept. Sound design here is excellent - the music unlike anything you have heard before and yet so fitting to the piece.

Park Chan Wook- the master of revenge- offers up CUT next, which again has elements of comedy and is a very intelligent and beautifully put together short. The cinematography and set design especially is done brilliantly.

Last up is The Box by Takashi Miike-moving, haunting and beautiful in equal measure, with a story so dark and deeply unsettling it will be difficult to shake it off.

Acting was OK at best, Filming was done well film plot lines were pointless and a little aggravating. May have worked if they had a common theme running through the 3 short films apart from crap.

As stand alone short films, all of these films are superbly made, if not a little hard to follow at times.

The acting is very good, the scripts are well written and they are beautifully shot.

Whether they work one after the other, I'm not fully decided on. By the third film I was starting to lose focus.

Well worth watching.

'Three...Extremes' is certainly an oddity which showcases an odd selection of horror shorts from three renouned Asian Directors.

The first of the set, 'Dumplings' certainly packs the strongest punch but offers very little other than the shock factor of its subject matter. Beyond this, the plot seems weak and fragmented and the characters lacking in subsidence. Of the three, I felt that this was probably the weakest film.

'Cut' is by far the most fun to watch. Marginally less depressing than the rest, it reflects the director's qwirky style very well. The story is well paced, never feeling like it drags, and displays some flashes of dark humor. The only thing that disappointed was the ending, as the film just seemed to come to a stop a little prematurely.

The final film, 'Box', is a surreal and eerie ghost story. Although the plot doesn't make 100% sense (typical Miike), it maintains a decent creepy atmosphere and uses music fantastically. Even though the plot felt a little weak, it was a beautifully presented and unforgetable bit of cinematography.

All in all, the collection is by no means perfect but is well worth watching for 'Cut' and 'Box'. 'Dumplings' was, unfortunately, missable...