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Film: Dumplings (Gau ji)
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.

The question for me, then, is whether or not I should spoil the story in this review, and with Dumplings, that’s a real question. If you aren’t familiar with the story, it’s not one that you want to have spoiled. At the same time much of the film’s power comes from the realization of what is going on. To talk about what the film means, though, the content has to be discussed—I'll put it under a spoiler tag when we get there.

The story is a simple one, as many a horror movie is. A former actress, Mrs. Li (Miriam Yeung), worries about aging. Her career is over and it’s becoming increasingly clear to her that her husband (Tony Leung Ka-fai) is having an affair with his masseuse. Desperate to regain her beauty and to rekindle the flame with her husband, she goes to the home of a woman who calls herself Aunt Mei (Bai Ling). The word is Aunt Mei’s dumplings have an amazing rejuvenating effect, and so Mrs. Li becomes a new customer.

As you might expect, it’s all about what’s going in the dumplings. I won’t spoil it, but there aren’t a lot of things that can be in there that would qualify this as a horror movie, so the options are pretty limited.

One of the elements of the film that doesn’t seem to be discussed a great deal is the nature of Mrs. Li as a character, so desperate to keep her husband. Mr. Li (neither of them are ever given first names in the film) has a lot of money, and that’s about it. There doesn’t seem to be any other reason anyone would want him (okay, aside from the fact that he looks like 2004-era Tony Leung). He appears to be the kind of person who will have sex with anything willing, and even some things that aren’t willing, someone who would sell his mother (or his wife) for a couple of bucks, evidenced not only by the fact that he’s gotten his masseuse pregnant, but that he pays an unscheduled visit to Aunt Mei.

But it’s really the dumplings that need to be talked about, so it’s time for a spoiler tag.

* * * WHAT’S IN THE DUMPLINGS? * * *

This is a horror movie, so there aren’t a lot of things that can be in the dumplings that would qualify this as horror. If you don’t know but are reading this anyway, you’re probably thinking that the dumplings contain human flesh, and you’d be partly correct. What they actually contain is aborted human fetuses. When the treatment isn’t going fast enough, Aunt Mei and Mrs. Li go for the high-powered version of dumpling fillings: fetuses at the five-month stage.

Yes, this is something we see. Knowing what is in the dumplings is one thing, seeing this is far more awful, and the film doesn’t shy away.

There are a lot of different things this could mean, of course. Many critics think that this is a commentary on the Chinese policy of allowing married couples to have only a single child, often forcing couples to have abortions if they get pregnant a second time. Of all of the possible interpretations, this seems like one that makes the most sense, and while the policy was rescinded in 2015, it was in full swing when this film was made.

It’s worth noting as well that the ending of this version of the story is different from that of the shorter, anthologized version. In this story, Mrs. Li, left to her own devices since Aunt Mei has had to close up shop thanks to an abortion that went very wrong, pays her husband’s mistress for her fetus, but only if she has an immediate abortion (since she is five months along). In the shorter version, again left to fend for herself, she makes dumplings from her own child.

* * * THAT’S WHAT’S IN THERE?! * * *

Honestly, the shorter version has the much more upsetting ending. I don’t know if it’s a better version, but it might be. I liked Dumplings more than I did Three...Extremes, but much of that is the weight of the other two stories.

Why to watch Dumplings: It’s unsettling in the best of ways.
Why not to watch: You can get 90% of the same story with an arguably more horrifying ending in half the time by watching the first part of Three...Extremes.