Three tales of the macabre, extreme indeed, from three different Asian directors, Hong Kong's Fruit Chan, Korea's Chan-wook Park, Japan's Takashi Miike, in that order, roughly forty minutes apiece. The first man up sets the bar far too high for his successors. Chan's offering, titled "Dumplings," is evidently a condensation of a feature-length film of the same name, an extremely twisted twist on the fountain-of-youth theme. The fountain in this instance would be the pricey homemade dumplings of the tenement-dwelling Bai Ling, whose flawless face and hinted-at advanced age are their best advertisement: "My dumplings are worth it. You get what you pay for." An over-the-hill TV actress, Miriam Yeung, is willing to pay the price, even when the secret ingredient is revealed to be aborted human fetuses, chopped up very fine. That's nowhere near the story's punchline, although the witnessed abortion achieves an early and unchallenged pinnacle in gore. Because this revelation is not the punchline, the viewer is obliged to sit for a while with the idea of self-indulgence, the idea of narcissism, at its most -- shall we say again? -- extreme. Shall we even say its logical extreme? The actual punchline, after what has preceded it, feels like the merest tap. It would no doubt simplify matters if the treatment here were as distasteful as the subject matter. But in fact Chan's touch is very controlled and assured -- extremely so -- and his eye is that of an artist. The viewing experience, torn as it is between the savory and the unsavory, may be a bit uncomfortable, but it's a long way from torture. The second episode, "Cut," is both overcontrived and overextended, a horrible bore, a boring horror. The third, "Box," is a return, at least partway, to control and assurance, yet it is not a return from boredom. (2004) — Duncan Shepherd
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