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Three ...Extremes, a review by Jon

Three ...Extremes
4 out of 5



This is a clever anthology of Asian horror. It's nicely produced, because each of the three is a separate country as well as director.

Dumplings (dir. Fruit Chan) Hong Kong
An ageing actress wishing to reclaim her youth goes to a woman who makes dumplings that supposedly have regenerative properties; however, they contain a gruesome secret ingredient.

Wow, this is intense stuff! It's rather unassuming, with straight-forward direction and there are no jump moments or gore, but the subject matter will probably stay with you for some time. I say there's no gore, but that depends on your perception; safer to say, don't watch it for gore, because it isn't that sort of film. It's a drama, that follows a middle-aged actress as she visits an enigmatic lady who promises she can restore her youth. This lady seems much younger, but claims to be far older. Her secret is in her special dumplings, which she prepares for her customers at her apartment.

You find out what is in the dumplings fairly early into this 40 minute story, though you see her preparing something even earlier. And it obviously ain't chicken! It's as sick an idea as they come and for the rest of the running time, it fairly wallows in the idea. When the actress finds out, she does a runner, but then comes back and gets stuck in. The camera lingers a lot on her eating and the sound effects really turn the screw.

As with much Asian horror, it has substance beyond it's premise and deals with societies obsession with youth. It's very good and is a short version of a feature length film. I have yet to decide if my stomach can handle another dose!  


Cut (dir. Park Chan Wook) Korea
A successful film director and his wife are kidnapped by an extra, who forces the director to play his sadistic games. If he fails, his wife's fingers will be chopped off one by one every five minutes.

This was a bit disappointing, to say it came from the director of OldBoy. What did I say about about substance above? This is rather empty in comparison, relying on a torture setup. It's still better than most of what the Saw films came up with and it's an ingenious trap and visually powerful. Korean films love to push the boundary of what cameras can do and Park pulls out all the tricks to brilliant effect.

The story is good to, with the director forced to consider something truly awful to free his wife, or at least save her remaining fingers. The kidnapper also forces all sorts of confessions and has an interesting theory about how rich and poor are depicted on TV compared to real life. Ok, I concede it has plenty of thought behind it. It's just the ending that felt a bit sensationalist. Almost as if they'd written themselves into a corner. Anyway, well worth seeing.

Box (dir. Takashi Miike) Japan
A soft spoken young woman has a bizarre recurring nightmare about being buried in a box in the snow. Searching for her long lost sister, she realizes her dreams and reality may possibly be connected.

With perhaps some very deep rooted similarities to the notorious Audition, this is easily the most ambitious of the three, but you wouldn't expect less from Miike who is a true master. He's also clearly mad! Visually the most powerful as he creates wonderful compositions without using any camera tricks (apart from a couple of subtle "twitches" that work very well), just well-dressed sets and contrasting tones. There are scenes in a snowy landscape that are simply gorgeous.

The story is the cleverest and most substantial of the three, again, relying on deep rooted psychosis rather than anything sensationalist. That takes away some immediacy, but I dare say this is the one that will continue to intrigue me. It isn't in anyway obvious and marks Miike out as the most Auteur-ish of the three brilliant men who contributed. I'd try to tell you more of the story, but the overview is good enough. I'm not sure I completely agree with the sentiments of that last sentence, but I can't describe it any better so I'll keep my mouth shut! Suffice to say, the ending leaves you in no doubt of the situation and may fascinate you enough to consider watching it again. Quite brilliant.

Three ...Extremes works very well in it's own right and just about escapes the problem that so many similar releases get trapped by. That feeling of style over substance, undone in the final moments, is common with short horror stories, but here, only Cut suffered and even then, it's still very good.

It works as an excellent primer to Asian cinema as well. They've been the best for horror for some time and the short stories make it easy to stop and come back to it, if you aren't used to their styles or even subtitles.

(From DCO third annual November Alphabet Marathon - discussion/review/banter thread on November 26th, 2009)

Bad Lieutenant, a review by Achim

Title: Bad Lieutenant
Year: 1992
Director: Abel Ferrara
Rating: NC-17
Length: 96 Min.
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1
Audio: English: Dolby Digital Surround
Subtitles: Spanish

Stars:
Harvey Keitel
Brian McElroy
Frankie Acciarito
Peggy Gormley
Stella Keitel
Victor Argo

Plot:
He has survived on the streets for twenty years. He's a gambler... a thief... a junkie... a killer and a cop. Now he's investigating the most shocking case of his life, and as he moves closer to the truth his self-destructive past is closing in. Harvey Keitel gives a searing performance as an out-of-control police detective on a collision course with disaster in director Abel Ferrara's brilliant and deeply disturbing melodrama.

Extras:
Scene Access
Production Notes
Closed Captioned

The cover pretty much says it all already! It's a film about a cop who lost his path (assuming he used to have it) and is going down the wrong lane way too fast. Only once do we see him try to do actual police work, but at that point it seems already too late and the results he gets confuse him more than they help the case (not sure why the cover doesn't say it, I think it's no secret that a nun gets raped).

Keitel is a great fit for the role of the Bad Lieutenant, who curses like a dock worker (even in front of his young kids; pre-teens...?), takes drugs as soon as his kids leave the car to go to school and is more concerned about his gambling than catching a thug who does hos stealing right in front of him. The films theme seems to be faith, with Keitel's character's faith in his baseball team failing him bitterly and the nun's faith helping her to forgive the guys who attacked her. This is a Ferrara film, so the violence incl. the rape are quite in your face, which helps to give the film its tone.

This is not a popcorn film, but a great watch when you are in the mood for something with a doomed main character (some may call this a spoiler, but I found this to be inevitable right from the start).

I specifically added Victor Argo to the above cast list because he is just great anytime I see him. But besides him, this film is riddled with great faces which give the piece a nice authenticity.



(From DCO third annual November Alphabet Marathon - discussion/review/banter thread on November 9th, 2009)

Babylon 5: Marathon, a review by DJ Doena

Synopsis: A Psi Cop trainee kills his roommate and escapes to Babylon 5. Bester and two other trainees pursue and try to capture him.

My opinion: This whole episode was being told from the Psi Corps' point of view, most prominently from Bester's view. They even changed the intro for this episode and put the Psi Corps sign on the back end of the station. This episode was quite interesting but it showed egain, how ruthless the Psi Corps is and how both sides don't see each other as the same race (homo sapiens vs. homo superior)


Synopsis: Delenn secretly orders Lennier to gather proof that the Centauri are behind the attacks. For this he takes a post upon a White Star ship as a Ranger trainee (which he in fact is). But to find this evidence he has to take an enormous risk. Meanwhile Londo offers the post of the Centauri Ambassador to Vir Cotto when Londo decides that Vir is ready.

My opinion: It was great to see Vir getting enraged like that. I also liked the reluctance with which G'Kar sees himself as some religious leader, especially when he's asked "What is the Truth?" and "What is God?".


Synopsis: Lennier has picked up on a trail, but he is alone in his fighter and the chances of being found and coming out of this alive are small. But finally he finds the proof that he was looking for. Meanwhile Londo is fed up with the information that the Alliance Council will falsely blame the Centauri for the attacks.

My opinion: If Londo only knew what he was going into. It was interesting to see whether or not Lennier would make it out alive, there are only a few episodes left and they could've easily killed him. But they haven't - yet.


Synopsis: A Council meeting is held and all the evidence against the Centauri is presented. The Alliance decides to build up a blockade on all jump points into Alliance space. As a consequence the Centauri who still deny of being responsible resign from the Alliance and send warships along their transporters. Sheridan tries to prevent a shooting war but he relies on a person that has become unreliable.

My opninion: Michael screwed it up badly this time. He may have prevented that encounter but he was too drunk and now there's war again. In the new Rambo movie there is a line said by him that was supposedly cut: "Old men start wars. Young men fight in them. And all others get killed. War is natural. Peace is an accident. We are animals." Unfortunatly that seems to be true and it saddens me.

(From Babylon 5: Marathon on February 2nd, 2008)