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Three…Extremes is an anthology film of horror stories from three of the most celebrated Asian cult/horror directors – Japan’s Takashi Miike (Ichi the Killer, Audition), Hong Kong’s Fruit Chan (Finale in Blood, Hollywood Hong-Kong), and Korea’s Park Chan-Wook (Oldboy, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance). With a lineup like that, one might expect that Lions Gate would provide seat belts and vomit bags with this double-disc DVD, but in reality, the concept of “extreme” varies considerably from director to director. I don’t want to say that the film is inconsistent, because the stories are all well crafted, beautifully shot, and definitely contain unsettling moments and images, but if you pick this up and expect wall-to-wall gore, you might feel a little cheated by the time the end credits get to rolling. On the other hand, if you’re open to perceiving “extreme” as a mental and emotional state, you’ll come away from Three…Extremes with a good old-fashioned case of the creeps.

Without question, the most unpleasant story of the three is Fruit Chan’s opener, “Dumplings,” which grafts a pointed social commentary onto an ugly little shocker that might’ve fit in well with an issue of E.C. Comics. Pop star Miriam Yeung stars as a former TV soap opera actress whose depression over her faded fame and philandering husband (Tony Leung) sends her on a search for a remedy to counter the effects of aging. She lands on the doorstep of “Auntie” Mei (Bai Ling), a brassy eccentric who swears that her dumplings can turn back the hands of time. A few bowls have Yeung convinced, especially after her husband’s sex drive kicks into high gear again… but ah, of course there’s a catch. Seems that Miriam is starting to… well, smell bad – like rotting meat – and needs more and more dumplings to keep up her new youthful look. And it’s after she comes knocking for the hard stuff – the Super Dumplings, if you will – that she discovers Auntie’s horrible anti-aging secret. But the real kicker to the story isn’t what that awful, bright red meat that Auntie is always chopping, chopping, chopping in her kitchen – but what Miriam does once she learns the truth behind it. “Dumplings” is a sharp and direct poke in your mental solar plexus that should have even the strongest of sleaze beasts reeling, and if it suffers in spots from slow pacing and a somewhat ambiguous ending, the meat of its story – so to speak – should be red and raw enough to keep the horror hounds happy.

Park Chan-wook’s “Cut” offers an equally horrifying premise at its core, though as with Park’s other films, the real devastation happens on an internal level. The premise, conceived by Park, is as devilish as any of the other webs than inextricably bind his characters – a successful and much admired film director (Lee Byung-Hun) finds himself trapped in his apartment by a homicidal lunatic who has worked as an extra in his movies. The extra has tied Lee to one side of the apartment, and at the other, just out of reach, Lee’s wife sits at a piano, held in place by an intricate system of wires. At first, the extra’s motivation seems to be money – he reveals that he’s suffered his entire life from poverty, which has lead him to abuse his children – but soon, it comes down to a terrible choice: Lee must show he’s as low and depraved as the extra by strangling a child that sits on a nearby couch, or the extra will lop off his wife’s fingers with an axe. What follows are a series of revelations that leads to a reversal towards the end of the episode – but Park doesn’t settle for a simple switcheroo, with Lee ending up as the “bad guy” and the extra as a saint in disguise. No, it gets uglier from there, and much bloodier, with a finale that pushes the viewer straight into a cold, brutal spot that takes a moment or two to really settle into the bones and rattle the nerves. Park’s episode is well placed between the visceral horror of Chan’s story and the more cerebral scares of Miike’s finale, as it delivers on both ends with both barrels.

Miike’s story, “Box,” was the opening episode in the original Asian theatrical release, but it’s been wisely shifted to the end for the American version; while it’s definitely a disturbing story, its “extreme” side is slow to dawn on the viewer (though its final image will definitely stop many in their tracks), and might’ve discouraged some audiences from forging ahead with the movie. Miike provides the only commentary on the disc, and reveals that his intention with “Box” was to unspool his story at an almost glacial pace, since so much of it has to do with memory and imagined realities: in short, it’s about a young author (popular actress Hasegawa) who is haunted by the accidental death of her twin sister in childhood. A flashback reveals that the pair performed in a magic/contortionist act in which their father folded them into small boxes, then threw darts into the boxes, which opened to reveal that the girls had been replaced with flowers. Perceived favoritism by the father for the other sister (as well as a hint of incest) prompts Hasegawa to lock her sister in her box during practice, during which all hell accidentally breaks loose – their tent catches fire, and both sister and father burn to death. Or so it seems: Hasegawa receives a note requesting her to return to the site of their tent, where she discovers her father, alive and unharmed – and with a small and very familiar box that she must open in order to truly apologize for her actions. And all this would be unsettling, for sure – if it was really how “Box” unfolded. But Miike has several curve balls to toss in your lap before he decides to let you off his hook – and even when he does offer a conclusion (a particularly startling and surreal one), you’re not quite sure if it’s the truth. Either way, “Box” is a hypnotic and occasionally disorienting experience, a bit like floating in the dark, but one that ends not with a feeling of serenity and relaxation, but a chill that’s hard to shake, even under the warmest of blankets.