"Three Extremes" is a collection of three short horror stories. Rather than repeating the same review three times, all three segments of this film can be summarized similarly: These three tales are all masterfully produced, seamlessly cast, and flawlessly produced. The acting is superb and directing is first class. What struck me most about these films was the beauty of the cinematography. The colors and textures were exhilarating; each film was almost a hand painted work of art in motion. Such emotion... Such clarity... It was stunning to see such intelligent brilliance on the screen. And remember, this is for all three films.... "Three Extremes" is intelligent horror that would more justly be classified as disturbing and bizarre than any form of scare fest. But it's this disturbing psychological horror that makes these films so unique and interesting to watch.

The first story is "Dumplings" by Lilian Lee. "Dumplings" is the tale of a beautiful woman that starts to age and attempts to regain her youthful looks by consuming very special dumplings. Not only are these dumplings expensive, they are made of a very rare ingredient considered taboo to consume in almost all societies. While she does start to regain her youth, the secret ingredient proves to have very strange side effects.

The second story is "Cut" by Chan-wook Park. "Cut" explores the anger of a movie extra whose life has been a miserable existence since birth. The movie extra decides to take his lifetime frustration to the attention of a renowned director that he has worked for on several occasions. The failures of the movie extra's life has caused him to spiral into to a deranged rampage of anger, and he chooses the renowned director and the director's wife to share his pain and anger with.

The third and final film is "Box" by Takashi Miike. "Box" is definitely the most abstract of the three films. The story is premised around a mysterious writer that experiences recurring nightmares about a tragic accident that befell her family in a mystical magic act. The death of a family member during the accident haunts the writer, not allowing her to rest peace.

"Three Extremes" is another example of outstanding Asian horror which seems to have taken the lead in producing the most outstanding of modern horror films. What has happened to American horror production anyway? Very few horror films released and made in the US since 1995 can compare to what has been coming out of Asia recently. "Three Extremes" in made up three very intelligent and unique horror films. I couldn't find anything to complain about with any of the three and would highly recommend this film to those US horror film goers that are as fed up as I am with US based horror cinema.