This is a trilogy of horror tales, and only one out of three worked for me. The first one involves a man who cannot remember what has happened to his wife. Every time he goes to sleep he has different, disturbing dreams regarding her whereabouts. The story is very unstructured but has a decent ending. The second segment is not much better than the first. Puppets are the main feature and they can cause all sorts of mayhem due to curses from the original owners. Lots of screaming, but it bored me to death. The third film is by far the best one. A man moves in to a run down apartment complex with his young son. The only other tenant is a man taking care of his supposedly paralyzed wife in a wheelchair. Turns out that his spouse is actually dead and he is using Chinese herbs to bring her back to life. It is clever and original and it kept me interested to the finish. My advice is to fast forward past the first two segments and just watch the third.

Actually made before the more popular 3 Extremes, but released afterward in most of the world. These three directors are less bankable than Takashi Miike and Chan-wook Park, though Ji-woon Kim does have A Tale of Two Sisters under his belt. Plus, it's much weaker. 3 Extremes, in my mind, is maybe the greatest horror anthology ever made, so this one has a lot to live up to. It begins with Kim's "Memories", which has some familiar Asian ghost story elements, but concentrates more on the images and moods than actual plot. In fact, the plot is fairly incoherent, though, after having seen the whole thing, it's easy enough to piece together what exactly is going on. I liked it quite a bit. Nonzee Nimibutr from Thailand comes next with "The Wheel". It's also a film that relies more on images than the story, which is about cursed puppets. The images are pretty, but the short is kind of lame. It's not terrible, but it's definitely the low point of this anthology. And then we come to Peter Chan's contribution, "Going Home". This one is the reason to watch this film. Gorgeously shot by master cinematographer Christopher Doyle, it's about a cop and his son who move into a new apartment building. The boy is annoyed by a small, creepy girl who lives across the way, and one day he disappears. While looking for his son, the cop discovers that the neighbor whom he thought was the girl's father is involved in some weird stuff. This one is just outstanding - and completely emotionally draining - and it gets better the more I think about it.

I'm nearly 100% sure that these were submissions for the first film that didn't make the cut. 'Memories' by acclaimed director Jee-Woon is oddly both totally predictable and yet full of interesting ideas that never come to fruition. This however is by far the most palatable of the bunch with some nice artistic touches here and there. The second feature 'The Wheel' is truly an exercise in tedium. Made on the cheap and a non-existent hackneyed plot, the word "unbearable" springs to mind. The last feature 'Going Home' starts out with promise but quickly fizzles out. What little story there is is ridiculous and paper thin. Above all, there is absolutely nothing extreme about these movies aside from a minute or two of totally out-of-place gore that seems to have been edited into 'Memories' though the scene serves no purpose, and the chills are virtually non-existent. It would be an enormous challenge to find much to recommend here.

of all the films, going home was the only one i really found memorable. the story was unique, and the sets were wonderfully atmospheric as well as the soundtrack.it's full of a stark kind of beauty - i didn't find it the least bit horrifying, and it was actually quite a sad tale that moves at a very slow pace that really kept me wondering how things would end.spoiler below.what i didn't understand is what happened to the little boy. i believed the little girl was the couple's unborn child, but why could the little boy see her, and what happened to him? what did the photographer's studio have to do with the story? it seems like the only people who saw her were the photographer who seemed to address her in the opening sequence, and the little boy.this is the first i've seen of a Chinese 'horror' film, i look forward to seeing more in the future. any recommendations out there?