Three ... extremes

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Movie
German title Three ... extremes
Original title ( Chinese   三更 2 , Pinyin sān gēng èr , Cantonese  Saam gaang yi , Korean : 쓰리, 몬스터 , Japanese : 美 し い 夜 、 残酷 な 朝 Utsukushii Yoru, Zankoku na Asa )
Country of production Hong Kong , South Korea , Japan
original language Cantonese , Korean , Japanese
Publishing year 2004
length 121 minutes
Age rating FSK No youth approval
Rod
Director Fruit Chan ,
Park Chan-wook ,
Takashi Miike
script Lilian Lee ,
Park Chan-wook,
Haruko Fukushima
music Chan Kwong-wing ,
Kōji Endō
camera Christopher Doyle ,
Jeong Jeong-hun ,
Kōichi Kawakami
cut Fruit Chan,
Kim Jae-beom, Kim Sang-Beom
Yasushi Shimamura
occupation
"Dumplings"
"Cut"
"Box"

Three ... Extremes is a horror - episodic film from 2004, which was created in Korean-Chinese-Japanese co-production. The film was put together by three renowned Asian directors ( Fruit Chan , Park Chan-wook , Takashi Miike ) from three countries and tells three different and unrelated stories.

action

Episode 1: "Dumplings"

Book : Lilian Lee ; Directed by Fruit Chan

Former actress Ms. Li cannot accept the prospect of gradually losing her youth and beauty. When she finds out that her wealthy husband, who is ten years her senior, regularly cheats on her with younger women on his business trips, she seeks out Ms. Mei, whose Chinese dumplings are said to have a rejuvenating effect. The filling of this mysterious food, however, are human fetuses that Mei receives from a nurse friend in an abortion clinic.

Even if Ms. Li is initially dreadful at the thought of the filling, she continues undeterred with her questionable therapy. Nothing can stop them from their goal of escaping the natural aging process. However, she becomes impatient and urges the process to be speeded up, forcing Mei to find a five-month-old fetus that is said to have a stronger effect. Coincidentally, a desperate mother and her underage daughter Kate turn to her for help. The girl was sexually abused by her father and is now five months pregnant. Mei is persuaded to have her abortion, but a short time later the young rape victim dies of bleeding and the mother later stabs her husband.

With the consumption of that bizarre dough filling, a short phase of happiness begins for Ms. Li. Her faithless husband breaks his leg and begins to be interested in her again. But there are also side effects such as skin irritation and an unpleasant body odor. When she goes to the doctor to be examined, she learns that, contrary to the previously assumed infertility, she is two months pregnant. Mei has to flee her apartment because of police investigations and now works as a street vendor. Since Ms. Li is no longer having fetuses, but is still obsessed with beauty, she finally decides to get her own fetus out of her body to eat it for her youthful appearance.

Episode 2: "Cut"

Written and directed by Park Chan-wook

The successful Korean director Ryu comes home at night after a strenuous horror film shoot. At home he is overwhelmed and knocked unconscious by a former extras. When he wakes up he finds himself tied with rubber bands in the setting of his latest film. In front of him he discovers his gagged wife, a well-known pianist who is attached to a piano with countless wires and glue. The insane intruder, with an irrepressible hatred of the director, immediately chops off a few fingers of her left hand from the defenseless female prisoner with an ax. In the presence of the shocked filmmaker, he then expresses his provocative view of the world, which says that every famous and rich person is a bad person. Good people like him, according to his thesis, would be pathetic failures. However, he cannot apply his assertion, which he considers to be generally valid, to the captured director, as he is a "huge exception". That is why the "good person" should strangle a kidnapped child who is also in the room with his own hands in a perverse game. Otherwise, his wife's fingers will be chopped off every five minutes.

The extremely popular and cowardly director tries meanwhile to convince his tormentor that he is a bad person without choosing the life of the child or his wife. Due to the attempted delaying tactic, the minor actor with a dark past severely unscrupulously severed four fingers from the pianist until the extortionate stranger stumbled and fell into the arms of the pianist, who gave him a fatal bite. At the end of the film, reality merges with the director's surreal perception. Driven by strange voices, Ryu, who is in a nightmare, strangles his beloved wife under the eyes of the little child.

Episode 3: "Box"

Book : Haruko Fukushima ; Director : Takashi Miike

The successful writer Kyoko lives completely lonely and withdrawn in wintry Japan. The young woman is plagued by nightmarish dreams in which she is wrapped in foil by an unknown man almost every day, put in a box and buried alive. When, in the midst of this mystical atmosphere, she sees the ghost of her dead twin sister Shoko, her past overtakes her and she begins to remember long-repressed images from her childhood. The siblings once performed together as child acrobats in their father's small traveling circus. Their task and at the same time the biggest attraction of the show was to squeeze into a small box, which the two artists managed with ease. However, since the father preferred Shoko and almost showered her with gifts, Kyoko jealously blamed the tragic accident of her sister, who died in a flame.

The young author's suffering never ends, and the dead sister's ghost seems to have haunted her for 15 years now. Little by little, the line between her disturbing fantasy and reality, as well as between the present and the past, becomes blurred for her. All of a sudden, the completely frightened woman finds herself in the circus tent in front of a colorful box when she suddenly meets the ghost of her father. At the end of the film, this well-meaning father turns out to be a mysterious stranger who puts her in a plastic sack every day to bury her alive. He would like to see his two daughters united. At the end of the film you can see that the girls are Siamese twins .

background

Reviews

“Three horror short films from Southeast Asia that enrich the genre with their variety of styles. 'Box': […] The bulky, experimental film relies less on shocks than on atmospheric density and gentle melancholy. 'Dumplings': […] The thematically shocking film holds back visually and captivates with the intimate camera work. 'Cut': […] The nerve-wracking, quite drastic horror thriller draws its tension from the fact that the couple is engaged in a verbal war that brings the real characters to light. "

- Lexicon of international film

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