I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

 What Scares Eastern People Isn't Particularly Scary

Three... Extremes (2005)
Three... Extremes 2 (2002)

Yeah I had to look at those dates more than once too. Apparently they released the sequel first in the United States so when they released the original they called it a 'sequel'. It really doesn't matter, because both are anthology movies from the best of the Eastern horror writers. I have said before that different countries and cultures seem to be afraid of different things. That is  VERY apparent in this anthology. You may consider it curious, and learn a little bit about Eastern culture but be scared by it? Not likely. Now we ARE a bit jaded when it comes to horror - a real scare is hard to come by. But these don't even come close and many seem unfinished or leave huge gaps in the story so we may be more confused than anything else. One cool aspect is that several countries are represented in these anthologies, with cultural references and a little bit to learn about. And it goes like this:

Three... Extremes

1. Dumplings (Hong Kong): An aging but very beautiful actress has a cheating husband and wants her youth to get him back. Now number one, if my husband, who looked middle aged grey hair and all cannot maintain interest in me I say screw him but this is Eastern culture... despite the fact that he ignores her completely and has a very young mistress, she still wants him back. She tries something drastic with a special 'cook'. She makes dumplings from scratch while her 'clients' wait so we get some long scenes of cooking that is a bit tedious. She tells the wife to try not to think about what the main ingredient is. Now some things Eastern people eat are, to me, already pretty gross so what could it be? Well, I've seen enough horror movies to make a good guess and I was right. The main ingredient is aborted fetuses (of which China has plenty). The wife keeps checking her skin to see if it is getting younger. She goes back a LOT. Finally she wants the 'strongest' stuff the woman has. On the side, this cook also performs abortions so she happens to have a 'fresh' one and shows it to the woman. Okay, that was a little wince worthy. It is a boy, rare to be thrown away, and the result of incest. So cook she does and eat the woman does and is getting younger (to tell the truth I couldn't see any difference). But the teenage girl the cook performed the abortion on dies from blood loss and the police are now on her trail. We see her with some of her belongings walking away to a new place, singing as she walks. As for the wife - the husband had showed her a little too much interest after her 'treatments' because she is now pregnant. But the cook is gone. The last scene is the wife in a bathtub with a hook. Uhhh, yes, this is what it's looking like. They are discreet enough not to display what happens but the last scene shows the wife with blood coming out of her mouth and a smile - creepy. Not particularly scary, but creepy.

2. Cut (S. Korea): A successful film director and his wife are kidnapped by an extra from his own films, who tries to get the director to kill a child. If he fails, his wife's fingers will be chopped off one by one every five minutes. This is a tedious story with not much scary going on. Wifey (who is American) loses digits. The director tries to kill the kid but can't. More fingers gone. The director is revealed not to be so perfect (the extra's main gripe). He has kept actors from certain directors he feels are better than him, and cheats on his wife. Not good enough. He tries again to kill the kid - it turns out to be the extra's own son. He is given a countdown and when he fails, the extra goes to kill the wife but slips and somehow she manages to rip his throat out with her teeth. Decent gore. Things get very confusing now. There's a weird camera pan around the room as if they're trying out a new lens they just got. The director starts to kill his wife, shouting to his wife (?!?) over his shoulder stop telling him to hurry, and he doesn't care if she's had affairs too. Now I'm totally lost. Or he's totally insane. As he strangles her, her tongue comes out way past her chin. Uh, okay. And we're done.

3. Box (Japan): Easily the weirdest and hardest to understand story. A woman keeps having the same dream. As children, she and her sister were contortionists who, along with their father, performed for money. After one night's performance the father gives her sister a necklace but not her. Extremely jealous, she sees her sister rehearsing and locks her in the box saying she can stay there for a while. The father sees her and they argue. Somehow a lamps gets knocked over and the flammable liquid reaches the box, setting it on fire. As punishment the father kidnaps her as an adult, locks her in a small box and buries it. This scenario repeats over and over in this story and we always get the statement 'the dream is always the same'. You have no idea if this is real or is she having nightmares. Apparently the whole breakdown of the story is claustrophobia. And thinking her father loves her less than her sister. I really don't know, this one had me so confused... especially the ending. Who is she telling her dream to? Her sister, who is alive - and attached to her. They are conjoined twins. Ooookay.


Three... Extremes 2

1. Memories (S. Korea): This is painfully obvious but still kind of tedious because we figure out what's going on right away but we have to get through the story anyway. A man wakes to find his wife gone. He has no memory of her leaving and has no idea why or where she is. Meanwhile, a woman wakes up on an empty street. She doesn't know who she is or how she got there. Do we have the story figured out yet? I did. Anywho both of them keep experiencing weird partial flashbacks of things that may have been real or may not. He even sees a psychiatrist to try to help him remember, and she finds out that no one can see or hear her. Got it yet? Sigh. They live in a new complex of apartments with a banner that says 'Welcome To New Town Where Dreams Come True'. He, his wife and daughter were the first to move in. He sends the girl with relatives as he attempts to solve the mystery that isn't really mysterious. Finally she remembers and he remembers - they are husband and wife. They had an argument and she was going to leave him, carrying a good size duffel bag. That's where her mangled body ended up, her husband dragging it up on the roof of the building for some reason. And the story ends. With no real explanation as to why neither could remember. And not scary in the slightest.

2. The Wheel (Thailand): This was by far the most complicated as far as story line and culture references go. In Thailand they have a type of entertainment called Khon using very intricately made costumes, especially masks, and they perform plays. Another form is puppetry, the puppets also very intricately made. There are also legends that the maker of a puppet has part of his soul inserted into it, so anyone who tries to take or use it becomes cursed and dies. In this convoluted story, a puppet master lies dying in his bed. Screams of terror erupt from him, surrounded by ghosts, which await his death. He had taken some of the aforementioned puppets and the 'true' owner is getting his revenge. A jealous leader of a Khon troupe waits until his death, then sneaks in and steals the puppets. Bad idea. They were already pissed, now they're furious. Bad things happen to the man and those around him, with the former assistant of the puppet master pleading with him to get rid of the things, he had been told of the curse. The man of course refuses. A small girl (His daughter?) frequently plays with one of the puppets and it begins to whisper to her instructions. Bad stuff. In the end, many people are killed, we are confused silly, and the story starts over for some reason. I really REALLY hate that. But again, not scary.

3. Going Home (Hong Kong): This could have been a good story if it had been a full length movie. Since it is a short story, there are huge holes and things happen that are just never explained. Basically a cop and his son move into a decrepit building, the boy fends for himself during the day, the father works at night. Across the courtyard (these buildings seem to be built square with a common grounds in the middle) is a man who is taking care of his 'paralyzed' wife, using traditional Chinese medicine. We have a weird and confusing bit of a photographer taking pictures of this guy and a small girl. Makes no sense whatsoever. The little girl, who only the boy can see (of course) leads him into the photographer's studio and he disappears. The father looks for him, asking the only other person who lives there. He's not satisfied with the man's denial and smells weird herbs and so busts right in. He is knocked out cold. When he wakes, he is tied up. Horrified, he realizes that the man's wife is not paralyzed - she's dead. But she looks freshly dead when she has actually been that way for almost three years. The man constantly talks to her, bathes her in the herbs he gets by the ton, even paints her nails and trims her hair. The cop begs to be let go to search for his son. The man, not evil, is a traditional medicine doctor and is trying to 'revive' his wife. He notices the cop looks ill and uses acupuncture to make him feel better, also serving him foods that will help him. The cop tries to explain that no one comes back from the dead but the man is insistent. In fact, the next day is three years exactly and she will wake up. When she does, he will let the cop go. The day comes and he swears he feels his wife's body warming up. Cops come to his door however, looking for the captive cop - he lies badly and they raid the place, taking the body. He gets away from the cops and runs after the morgue vehicle stopping in the middle of the street to watch it go. He's hit by a car (this was a pretty good effect - he must have rolled in the air three times before he hit the ground). Dead. The cop visits both bodies in the morgue and now the story comes out. The two had been med students together and fell in love. They also both had liver cancer. Uh huh. He died. She took care of him for three years and he came back. So when she died, he does the same for her, willing to wait out the years out of love. Now both are on slabs. We see her fingers twitch just a bit, and a single tear falls from her eye. The end. But not quite. The whole family, man, wife and the baby they had to abort because she was ill are in the photographer's studio getting their picture taken. Huh? That baby is the little girl who lured the son into the studio. He is now let go. The father never does ask after him or try to find him. The real end.