Three Extremes
This Tartan release on its ‘Asia Extreme’ label is a collection of three short films, coming from Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan, directed by Fruit Chan, the man of the day Park Chan-Wook and the unstoppable Takashi Miike respectively.
Movie
This Tartan release on its ‘Asia Extreme’ label is a collection of three short films, coming from Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan, directed by Fruit Chan, the man of the day Park Chan-Wook and the unstoppable Takashi Miike respectively. Billed as being “From the nightmares of three masters of Horror”, the first is more like a social nightmare, the second just a metaphorical daily nightmare, and the third someone else’s nightmare other than the directors. However, despite the false tagline there is a lot to enjoy in at least two of these 40 minute short films.
DUMPLINGS is directed by Fruit Chan from Hong Kong and settles on the story of Mrs Li, who in her search for eternal youth visits Aunt Mei, the best and most expensive dumpling maker in the area. We find out that Mrs Li’s husband is having an affair and that she will do anything to look younger, including eating dumplings made with still born foetuses. This short film is a shortened version of a feature length film, also released by Tartan, that suffers from its abridging. Although it has much to recommend it, not least its eerie atmosphere and great cinematography by Wong Kar Wai’s old collaborator Christopher Doyle, it does fall short due to its quick and surreal ending that not only left me frustrated but also highly confused. What the hell was that tongue at the end???
The second installment is Park Chan-Wook’s CUT, the story of a film director who leaves his set and returns home, only to find that one of the extras from many of his previous films has taken him and his wife prisoners. He then begins torturing them and forcing the director to admit to badness that he has committed. For every wrong answer that the extra gets he hacks of one of the director’s wife’s fingers. As she is a pianist, this is obviously traumatic. Even though, as you are aware, fingers can be sown back on after ten or so hours without any adverse effects, our hostage taker makes sure that this is not possible by putting them in a blender and making a nice smoothy. As usual, like his other films SYMPATHY FOR MR VENGEANCE and OLD BOY, the film looks great but suffers from a poor script, even though the more recent SYMPATHY FOR LADY VENGEANCE makes up for these former misgivings. In the Making Of on this DVD he says that the film is based on the idea that these days it is getting easier for the poor to be bad and for the rich to be nice, thus bucking the trends of history. Although that may come through in the film, the ending seems pretty pointless and the sheer style of the piece seems its main bones.
The final installment is the prolific Japanese director Takashi Miike’s BOX. It tells the story, well presents a collage of imagery from the main characters traumatic childhood and a situation that has haunted her from that day on. We find out that her and her sister used to perform ballet and eventually some contortionist tricks, by finishing their act and getting into two small boxes. Performing with their father, one of the girls becomes jealous and feels left out by her father’s greater love for her sister. An accident ensues and the little girl ends up burning them both alive. This being the scenario that obviously haunts her forever. Not being a watcher of many of Miike’s films, this was the one I was dreading watching the most, with my only previous experience of his work being ICHI: THE KILLER, THE BIRD PEOPLE IN CHINA and AUDITION.
However, due to the sheer control of the narrative this ranks as one of the best films of its length that I have seen. It has a dreamlike, surreal quality and a true atmosphere, the kind cinema was created for. It is sensitive, minimal and in places hypnotic. The film is so subtle that it is hard to imagine that the aforementioned ICHI could be given to the world by the same person. The camera work is exceptional and the use of sound is a lesson to everyone. It is original and like with the best of short films it doesn’t try to be what is usually accepted as being a short film (i.e. a short feature length film), as it has a narrative that is adapted to this different kind of cinematic art. For the price of admission alone, this film makes this DVD a must watch.
The sound is good on all the films, especially Miike’s, which has a great use of minimal sound. The silent moments are actually more menacing than most films most menacing moments that are played with both loud music and noisy sound effects. DUMPLINGS is also notable for a strong uncomfortable soundtrack. The foetus bones being crunched in the dumplings always make for uncomfortable listening. CUT also makes use of a good soundtrack but it is not as inventively used as the former mentioned. The picture is also good but it is unclear whether this is the complete ratio because during the credit sequence on at least one of the films, the names over flood the side of the screen. That aside, the technical production of the DVD seemed up to Tartan’s usual high class standard.
Extras
MAKING OF DOCUMENTARY (53 minutes)
This is split into three sections as you might expect. The first is on set footage and interviews with the leading participants from DUMPLINGS. As this film also exists in a feature length version, everyone is discussing the longer version of the film. Therefore we get plot and character information relevant to a film that we have not seen. However, as the film was rather profound at the end, the extra information does help fill in the gaps between the two versions and make the watching of the longer version unnecessary. But that aside, this part of this extra is not specific to the film on this DVD, which is problematic.
Part two focuses on Takashi Miike’s film. It is a fly on the wall overview of Miike working, including close ups of his notebooks which he is religiously referring to throughout filming. The subtitles disappear when the shooting goes outdoors and we see how cold the shoot must have been as a couple of characters are running about in indoor clothes in the snow. In the last couple of minutes the lead actress is interviewed, with the best sound bite being that she didn’t understand the script at all but she is trying her best to understand it as they are filming it.
Part three also has a different presentation. It starts with brief interviews with Park Chan-Wook and the lead actors before becoming a fly on the wall observation of the set, minus subtitles. We see the wife being elaborately tied to her piano and the embarrassing dance routine given by the hostage taker. This fly on the all stuff lasts about 11 minutes and is concluded with the actors all watching the dance sequence back together on a monitor, again without subtitles.
All in all, an ok addition to the DVD but more subtitles would have helped us get a better idea of what the shooting was like and the banter that takes place when people are pulling together.
Overall
THREE EXTREMES is worth watching for Miike’s section BOX alone, which may make it appealing to rental customers who may not want to watch the other segments. Fruit Chan’s DUMPLINGS also had a lot to recommend it and its twisted take on how far people go to attain their youth, and as the director points out in the Making Of, people in Asia already eat their placenta’s to give them strength, so the plot in this film does have a realistic, if not slightly far fetched basis. It was always interesting to watch but I think checking out the feature length version would be more beneficial. Park Chan-Wook’s film was the biggest let down for this reviewer but indeed maybe the biggest draw for most people. For my part, I thought it was as meaningless as the other films of his I have seen, that is, they look amazing but they are pretty nasty and empty pieces of writing. The one extra, the Making Of, is a worthy addition but just to overstate the point, you must see this to watch Takashi Miike’s film, it is a revelation and one of the best things I have seen recently.
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