3...EXTREMES (2004)

Directors: Fruit Chan, Chan-wook Park, Takashi Miike

An anthology of three short (~45 min each) films by three of Asia’s top directors.
Dumplings: My least favorite of the three, this one features a woman who is worried about her aging appearance, so she seeks the services of a woman who makes dumplings that can supposedly make you look younger. The key ingredient to the dumplings isn’t a big shock like it is supposed to be. When things start going wrong and the dumplings have some freaky side effects, things do get somewhat interesting, but overall there was nothing too special here.
1 1/2 out of 4 Zombie Faces

Cut: The best of the program. A disgruntled movie extra takes a famous director and his wife hostage and tortures them out of jealousy over their happy and successful lives. The story is entertaining, humorous, and disturbing, with many clever twists and creative gore. Director Chan-wook Park, he can really do no wrong in my opinion, as everything I have seen from him is top-notch. He does an amazing job directing this, it has a very stylish look to it with lots of unique shots and great pacing. The ending isn’t exactly clear, but it doesn’t really detract from the overall piece.
4 out of 4 Zombie Faces

Box: A young woman starts having strange nightmares when she becomes close friends with a man who looks exactly like someone associated with bad memories from her childhood. Visually, this is dreamy, hauntingly beautiful, flashing back and forth between the present and events in the woman's childhood. The story, like in many of Miike’s films, is meant to be somewhat ambiguous, and this is fine. This has the potential to be one of my favorite Miike pieces, except he ruins it by throwing in a ridiculous surprise ending after the story was already satisfactorily resolved. It was like he felt the need to shock the audience one last time before it was over, I wish I could cut the last 15 seconds of this film.
3 1/2 out of 4 Zombie Faces

Overall:
3 1/2 out of 4 Zombie Faces