Format: Streaming video from Tubi TV on Fire!
I have to wonder about the creation of the film Dumplings (or Gau ji if you prefer). This film was released in 2004, the same year as what is known in the U.S. as Three...Extremes, an anthology film. The first film in that anthology is also called Dumplings and is also directed by Fruit Chan. It’s the half-length version of this movie, with some differences, at least in terms of the ending. Were they filmed at the same time? The cast is the same and the story is the same and a lot of it looks the same. Was it entirely re-shot? Why put them out in the same year?
That last question is perhaps the most interesting one. A great deal of what makes Dumplings work from the audience’s point of view is what the dumplings in the title actually are. Going into this already knowing didn’t make the film worse in any noticeable way, but it certainly got rid of a lot of the tension that I experienced in the anthologized version. The entire point of the film is to be deeply upsetting—it still is in places—but the shock is gone for most of it if you’ve seen the shorter version. Of course, if you see this version first, it spoils the anthologized story.