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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.

Ten Days of Terror!: Three...Extremes

Films: Three…Extremes (Sam Gang 2)
Format: Streaming video from Tubi TV on Fire!

Ah, the horror anthology, my old nemesis. So often, these turn out to be disappointing because we’re just not given enough reason to care about the people involved. They can offer a good scare or two, but they don’t tend to have the emotional heft of a full-length film. Three…Extremes (or just Three Extremes if you prefer, or Sam Gang 2), as the name implies, contains three films by three different directors. As it happens, it’s also in three different languages because our three directors are from different countries.

The first film, Dumplings (which was also turned into a full-length feature), was directed by Fruit Chan; the second, Cut, was directed by Park Chan-wook; and the third, Box, by Takashi Miike. I found this very interesting—this was a sort of collaboration between a Chinese, Korean, and Japanese director. Additionally interesting is that in the West, this is considered the first of the Three Extremes movies, but is Sam Gang 2 in Asia. What the West calls Three Extremes 2 is Sam Gang in Asia, and was released two years prior to this one.