Let me preface this, my first "double header" review, where I look at two separate films in the same review, by saying simply that in the coming paragraphs, you will read me repeatedly gush about these two flicks. You will read as I spout hyperbole about two films, Three and Three: Extremes. These are two of the best movies (or should I say "six" movies) that I've seen in a very long time. Three, the first collection, takes a disturbing and hypercritical look at some uniquely Asian death/afterlife beliefs and legends, while Three: Extremes (also aptly known as Three: Monsters) examines the decidedly monstrous side of human nature, in the form of jealousy, vanity, and obsession/hero-worship respectively. Since these two films represent a total of six short films, I will take a look at each of the films as individual entries in this context, then expound on the releative merits of each as well as the DVD releases proper. So, I'll get to it...hold onto your butts...
Three
Memories - Directed by Kim Jee-Woon - Korea
If one felt compelled to sum up Kim Jee-Woon's entry in the Three series with a single word, what word would they choose? Some that leap to mind: Kubrickian, stylish, nightmarish, haunting. Personally, I can't choose just one. Really, and combination of those words would do, but honestly, to do so would short-shrift what Jee-Woon has accomplished here. Memories begins innocently enough; with a slowly tracking and zooming shot of a man napping on a couch in his sparse but tastefully-appointed home. It's amazing how much tension a shot like this can build...the viewer becomes almost voyeuristic in his curiosity. The shot goes on, interrupted, for a few minutes. Finally, we are given a brief respite with eerie shots of a child's doll, a bright blue balloon, and a seemingly overstuffed duffle bag in the corner of the room...all bathed in blueish shadows. Finally, the man wakes up. His eyes are drawn to various things: the doll, the balloon, and the duffle bag. By the time his eyes reach the bag, we see that a woman, face obscured by her dark, flowing hair, kneels by the bag and mournfully rocks back and forth. Fade to black. We soon learn a bit about both the man and the woman. The woman wakes up in the middle of a street...her clothes disheveled and her cellular phone (lying nearby) shattered beyond repair. Slowly, the woman rises, brushes herself off, and realizes that she can't remember who she is...where she's from...thus she begins her search for "home", wherever that is. Meanwhile, we rejoin the life of the man we first saw in the opening shot. It seems his wife is missing, and we surmise that the amnesiac in the road from earlier must be her. The man is surrounded by his wife's family, who are trying to push him to do any-and-everything in his power to aid in the search, but he resists, ostensibly because some time (apparently) has passed since her disappearance. and drawing the process out seems to be like rubbing salt in his wounds, so to speak. Is the mystery woman his wife? Will the man ever find out what happened to her? Do certain parties know more than they are letting on? You'll find out, but be warned...as the truth is revealed, it ain't pretty. This story is told in slow, careful strokes, like a terrifying painting being completed before our eyes. Not a shot is wasted, and those shots are spectacular in their technical proficiency as well as their composition. This is a truly beautiful, if disturbing, short film, and it will stay in your Memories for a long time to come.
The Wheel - Directed by Nonzee Nimibutr - Thailand
Easily the weakest entry in the original Three, Nonzee Nimibutr's The Wheel is nevertheless a very fine short film. It's also the most obscure and obtuse, mostly due to its dreamlike structure and nightmare logic. It revolves around a small Thai village (not sure of the time period, but I assume it's supposed to be not quite "modern"), and the highly competetive troupes of performers that call the village home. The two troupes...one a group of highly respected traditional puppeteers, and the other a dance troupe that tells the same stories as the puppeteers but through dance...hold a kind of shaky mutual respect for one another. But, all is not well. When the de facto "leader" or "master" of the puppeteers suddenly dies (under suspicious circumstances), the put-upon and jealous "master" of the dance troupe seeks to usurp the puppetmaster's position by stealing the puppetmaster's ornate, highly prized...and supposedly cursed...puppets. Much puppet-related hysteria, spookiness, and gnashing of teeth ensues. While The Wheel is the least "traditional" in terms of setting and execution, it is by far the most "EC Comics"-like of the six short films reviewed here...the bad man does something mean to the good man, the good man dies, the bad man (and his family) suffer unspeakable torments, thus restoring justice and order to the universe. Therein lies the problem, as The Wheel is simultaneously the most "Asian" (in terms of setting and mythology) and the most "Western" in terms of point. It's a very good short film, and it's suitably creepy and atmospheric, but it simply feels a bit out of place. I dunno...maybe it's just me. I'd welcome some opposing perspectives on the matter. There are, however, some sublimely creepy moments to be had here, and The Wheel is by no means a failure. It's just not quite up to par with the other entries in this series. Aww, fuck it...watch it yourself and come to your own conclusions...
Going Home - Directed by Peter Ho-Sun Chan - China
Saturated with not only an eerie greenish coloration but also an overbearing sense of melancholy, Going Home starts with a man and his young son walking through a nameless, dreary metropolis to their new rat-bag apartment. The man is a police officer, and he and his son are alone since the man's wife passed away some time before the story begins. At first, the focus seems to be on the boy, or at least his point of view, as he reacts to everything he sees with a sense of wonder and even a degree of fear. Finally, the two are shown their new home by a curmudgeonly landlord whom, though he lacks patience, seems to be impressed by the fact that the man is a cop. The boy, being a typically curious young boy, goes off to explore on his own for a bit, and meets a strange, silent little girl in a red coat, which gives the boy a serious case of the willies...something just isn't right with this little girl, he seems to sense. Soon, the man and his son meet a strange, lonely man. They always seem to cross paths when he is making one of his all-too-regular trips to the garbage dump...carrying large, weighty plastic bags that perpetually leak...something. Soon, the police officer (who now becomes the focus of the story) goes back to work, leaving his little son to fend for himself during the daytime. One day, the little boy seems to up and disappear. Distraught and confused, the man goes on a search for his son that leads him to the door of the strange neighbor. What he discovers is both tragic, haunting, terrifying, and even a bit humorous (depending on how you look at it). Our "hero" discovers that loneliness is contagious, and it can produce strange bedfellows. There really isn't any other way to sum up Going Home without ruining some of the key shocks. Suffice it say that it's a dreary, eerie, freaky tale that'll stick with you...
Three: Extremes
Box - Directed by Takashi Miike - Japan
Three: Extremes starts off with a quiet but completely unnerving "bang" from one of Japan's most well-known and prolific directors, Takashi Miike. This guy, as my readers will surely attest, can direct anything...any kind of movie, and his work on Box proves that point quite nicely. Box tells the tale of a very beautiful young woman plagued by nightmares about a terrible accident that claimed the life of her twin sister when they were just preteen girls...an accident that may or may not have been the fault of our heroine. She seems to sleepwalk through life, haunted by the ghosts of her past...at first figuratively, but soon, we begin to feel that there is something more going on here than meets the eye. The melancholy tone and sumptuous cinematography of Box are quite stunning, and within the first few seconds, the viewer is swept away in this dreamlike world. Make no mistake, this is a Takashi Miike film, and thematically, it's instantly recognizable as such. There are shocks to be had, but they all serve the story, and the "signature Miike" themes of family deconstruction are given a broad and emotionally charged kick in the nads. There are images here that will burn themselves onto your mind's eye, only to stay there festering...haunting you for weeks after viewing.
Dumplings - Directed by Fruit Chan - China
Dumplings was conceived as a full-length, stand-alone feature film (in fact, a hugely expanded version is also available on import DVD). I think I prefer the tightly edited, no-nonsense version presented here. Dumplings concerns the efforts of a lovely, but slightly past-her-prime actress Ching (Miriam Yeung) who lives in a more or less loveless and/or sexless marriage to a philandering guy who takes basically every opportunity he can get to cheat on her with girls half his own age. She knows about this, of course, and it hurts her deeply...she views herself as the world views her...as a formerly pretty celebrity whose day in the sun has long since passed. She goes in search of a literal "fountain of youth", and finds it, in the form of some highly questionable (but delicious) dumplings served up by a mysterious woman named Auntie Mei (Bai Ling). Auntie Mei promises that her dumplings...filled with secret (at first) ingredients...will make Ching look and feel years younger. A skeptical Ching sooon becomes almost addicted to Mei's dumplings, even after she discovers the horrific source of the special ingredients. Dumplings is a strong, parable-like tale with a nasty edge, but it's filmed and presented with such exquisite beauty and grace that it's impossible to take your eyes off it. This really is about how two different women come to terms with the aging process (though "loss of youthfulness" would be more accurate), and the lengths to which they would go to achieve their goals. Clearly, a story like this wouldn't work if not for the two actresses...Yeung and Ling deliver beautiful, creepy, and nuanced performances in Dumplings...two of the best female performances in a motion picture that I've seen in a long time (regardless of genre). Interestingly, by the time Ching is waist deep in her unusual dietary practices, she doesn't look much different than when she started...at least not physically. She looks more...I don't know...alive, and about 100 times more confident in her womanhood and her sexuality, but this is revealed in the way that Miriam Yeung skillfully and subtly changes her posture and her body language...a perfect demsonstration of one of the points that Dumplings tries and succeeds in making; a woman is only as young and beautiful as she feels. No potion, skin-care regimin, diet, or makeup ritual will ever replace a youthful outlook. Fruit Chan does remarkably well carrying across all of these subtleties, and the result is a chilling, disturbing, and bittersweetly funny story that is one of my personal favorites in the whole Three millieu.
Cut - Directed by Park Chan-Wook - Korea
Park Chan-wook, of Old Boy and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance fame, is kind of the David Fincher of Korea. He is a director of pure technique, and he uses that technique to propel his stories. Here, in Cut, he weaves a simple tale of a strong-willed (but generally nice) film director (do I smell a hint of autobiographical parallels?) and his primadonna pianist wife who are held captive on a closed film set by a genuinely whacked-out dude. The psycho guy superglues the pianist's fingers to the keys of a piano, chains up the director on the opposite wall, and threatens to cut off one of the woman's fingers every five minutes unless the director performs the bare-handed murder of a small girl bound and gagged on a sofa across the room. After a few fingers have been lopped off, it's clear that this guy means business, and he is faced with the most difficult decision of his life...kill the child, or let his wife (and then likely himself) be maimed and tortured to death by this madman. There are twists and turns, when it's revealed that not one single person in the room are quite the person that the rest of the people in the room thinks they are...both morally and otherwise...and as the tension mounts and the clock ticks, pure confusion moves to pure desperation to pure betrayal and pure terror. Chan-wook...never one to simply let his camera sit still and observe...turns the camera into the all-seeing, swooping eye of the viewer, and the use of forced perspective and tight shots really put you into the horrendous action. In recent months, I've become quite a fan of Chan-wook's work, and he surely doesn't disappoint with Cut.
Whew...six short films across two containing features. There's a lot of meat here (pun intended), and I have to say that as "world cinema" goes, it's clear from both Three and Three: Extremes that Asia "has it all under control" when it comes to genre filmmaking and storytelling. Here we have six filmmakers who are so clearly in charge of their craft that the viewer doesn't have to give the process a second thought. One only has to sit back and get swept away by the sheer beauty and terror of these six films...and swept away you will be. From cinematography to lighting to sound design to makeup effects (which are used sparingly but to perfect effect) to performances...these are self-contained little gems that no would-be horror film fanatic should go without seeing. Leave it to the Asians to lay the proverbial smack-down on the rest of the world. Here are six films that not only terrify, but encapsulate an aspect of modern society...regardless of geography.
Here we have two DVDs that present the six short films as perfectly as they could possibly be. The widescreen images are absolutely spot-on, and the surround sound tracks are beautifully effective. Both of the discs are completely devoid of special features, and with the exception of plentiful and well-placed chapter stops and excellent removable English subs, they are no-frills presentations. Still, this is one case where you'll hear me say that it just doesn't matter...not one iota. I don't care if these discs have special features or not, the films are so wonderful that the discs are an absolute must-have for not only fans of horror cinema, not just "world cinema", but cinema in general. I purchased both of my discs from Machiavel DVD, where they can usually be procured for less than $20 USD each...I'm tellin' you, there isn't a sounder investment to be seen. Get them. Now. Seriously.
Let me preface this, my first "double header" review, where I look at two separate films in the same review, by saying simply that in the coming paragraphs, you will read me repeatedly gush about these two flicks. You will read as I spout hyperbole about two films, Three and Three: Extremes. These are two of the best movies (or should I say "six" movies) that I've seen in a very long time. Three, the first collection, takes a disturbing and hypercritical look at some uniquely Asian death/afterlife beliefs and legends, while Three: Extremes (also aptly known as Three: Monsters) examines the decidedly monstrous side of human nature, in the form of jealousy, vanity, and obsession/hero-worship respectively. Since these two films represent a total of six short films, I will take a look at each of the films as individual entries in this context, then expound on the releative merits of each as well as the DVD releases proper. So, I'll get to it...hold onto your butts...
