Cult 101: Three… Extremes (2004)
Director: Fruit Chan, Park Chan-wook, Takashi Miike Run Time: 125 min. Rating: R Release Year: 1970
Starring: Atsuro Watabe, Kyoko Hasegawa, Mai Suzuki, Mitsuru Akaboshi, Yuu Suzuki
Country: Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea
Language: Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin with English subtitles
Cult 101 at Gateway Film Center
A celebration of the best cult films of all time.
See more Cult 101About the film:
A visceral, cross-cultural horror anthology featuring short films from three accomplished indie directors: Fruit Chan of Hong Kong, Park Chan-Wook of South Korea, and Takashi Miike of Japan.
In Fruit Chan’s disgustingly entertaining Dumplings, an aging actress wishing to reclaim her youth goes to a woman who makes dumplings that supposedly have regenerative properties; however, they contain a gruesome secret ingredient.
In Park Chan-Wook’s brutally violent Cut, a successful film director and his wife are kidnapped by an extra, who forces the director to play his sadistic games. If he fails, his wife’s fingers will be chopped off one by one every five minutes.
In Takashi Miike’s brilliant psychological thriller Box, a soft spoken young woman has a bizarre recurring nightmare about being buried in a box in the snow. Searching for her long lost sister, she realizes her dreams and reality may possibly be connected.
“What all three of these stories share is the quality found in Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft and Stephen King: An attention to horror as it emerges from everyday life as transformed by fear, fantasy and depravity.”
—Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
About the filmmakers:
Fruit Chan is an actor, director, and producer form Hong Kong. He first entered the film industry in the 1980s as an assistant director before making his directorial debut with Finale in Blood (1991). His follow-up feature, Made in Hong Kong (1997), is the first installment of his “Handover Trilogy,” and received acclaim among the festival circuit, winning awards at Gijón International Film Festival and Locarno International Film Festival, among others. Fruit Chan’s most recent film, Three Husbands (2018), won awards for Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actress from the Hong Kong Film Critics Society.
Park Chan-wook is a celebrated South Korean film director, screenwriter, producer, and former film critic whose diverse body of work has earned him international recognition and respect, beginning with the Korean box office record-breaking Joint Security Area (2000). At the Cannes Film Festival, he was awarded the Grand Prix for Old Boy (2004), the Jury Prize for Thirst (2009), and Best Director for Decision to Leave (2022), which was shortlisted for Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards. He is also known for The Handmaiden (2016), Decision to Leave (2022), the English-language film Stoker (2013) and The Vengeance Trilogy, consisting of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002), Oldboy (2003) and Lady Vengeance (2005). He also directed the BBC miniseries The Little Drummer Girl (2018).
Takashi Miike is an iconic Japanese film director, producer, and screenwriter. He began his career in television and directing low-budget films for the Japanese direct-to-video market. His cinematic debut, Shinjuku Triad Society (1995) gained a nomination from the Director’s Guild of Japan, and its extremely violent depiction of underworld gang wars would become a recurring theme in his work. Since then, Miike has made over 100 films and has gained a strong cult following. His international breakthrough Audition (1999) won the international film critics’ award at the Rotterdam Film Festival in 2000. His other features include Ichi the Killer (2001), Gozu (2003), One Missed Call (2003), the Dead or Alive trilogy, and 13 Assassins (2010). His films have screened at festivals all over the world, with Hara-kiri (2011) and Straw Shield (2013) premiering in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2019, Fantastic Fest honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
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