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Three
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Country
: |
Thailand
/ Hong Kong / South Korea |
| Year: |
2002 |
| Genre: |
Horror
/ Drama |
| Format: |
DVD |
| Running
Time: |
35min
/ 49 min / 39 min |
| Distributor: |
Panorama |
| Date
reviewed: |
02/01/2003 |
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| Producer: |
x |
| Director: |
Nonzee
Nimibutr / Kim Ji-Wun / Peter Chan |
Cast: Suwinit Panjamawat, Leon
Lai, Jeong Bo-Seok, Kim Hye-Su, Eric Tsang, Eugenia Yuan |
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Story:
The Wheel (Thailand)
Hun Lakom Lek is a prosperous and renowned Thai puppeteer,
but one day his life ends abruptly, he leaves behind
him his famous puppets without an owner. Kru Tong is
a Khon performer, masked street performers who use real
people to tell their story instead of puppets. Kru Tong
knows about Hun puppets and would like to get his hand
on these precious puppets even if he’s aware of
the curse that these puppets are supposed to carry.
Terrible doom will come to anyone who comes in possession
of these puppets, but this legend doesn’t scare
Kru Tong and decide to get it for his own prosperity.
Going Home (Hong Kong)
A policeman named Wai moves into a new apartment in
Hong Kong with his young son called Cheung. The place
seem very scary to Cheung, especially the weird neighbors,
but this doesn’t seem to bother his father very
much. Cheung soon goes missing and Wai suspects the
man and his paralyzed wife who live next doors. Taking
matters into his own hands, he decides to investigate
his neighbors but it doesn’t take long for Wai
to understand that the man maybe doesn’t have
anything to do with the disappearance of his son but
nonetheless he’s a real psycho. Taken as a hostage
by the mysterious man, Wai will discover the strange
past and also the real intention of that man.
Memories (South Korea)
A taxi driver is having dark visions and nightmares
about his disappeared wife. Her family is currently
seeking her but nobody has gotten any news from her
since a few weeks. Meanwhile the lady in question
is struggling in dark deserted streets, to find her
way back home, but it seem that she has no memories
about who she is and how she manage to end up in the
city alone far away from her home.
Review: Thailand, Hong Kong and South Korea
teaming up to do a horror movie trilogy, what a brilliant
idea. Asian horror is still on its peak and is always
pushing the bar further for scaring the hell out of
you. Three is not a regular movie but three separated
average length movies with no common element between
them, except for the theme of horror and spirits.
All very well made, the shorts are very interesting
for anyone who enjoys the new wave of asian horror
movies, who instead of focusing on the gore/blood
factor, focus more on the general atmosphere and tension
of the movie.
Story wise all the three movies are excellent and
manage to put out a story that is interesting all
along the way and make you really wonder how it will
conclude. The best of the three is without a doubt
the Hong Kong story directed by Peter Chan (producer
of The Eye) and featuring the cinematography of Christopher
Doyle. They really manage to pull out an excellent
story with an incredible and beautiful ending. But
even if Going Home has the best story, it was also
the most confusing, because some details are just
not very clear but since the movie is now also available
on it’s own in a longer version on DVD, this
version is probably more complete. The Wheel from
Thailand, set in the old time, is also very interesting
but is probably the one that his the closest one to
its cultural roots. The traditional puppet theater
is something that most norths Americans are not familiar
with, which makes it a bit hard for us to fully appreciate.
But this aspect doesn’t make the movie any less
enjoyable and on the other side it is also a very
interesting way to learn about this tradition. As
for Memories from South Korea, it was a good short
but I think that I had too much expectation for it.
Directed by Kim Jee-Woon (Quiet Family, Foul King),
Memories starts with a very unclear story and gradually
had some key elements to it until it’s big finale.
The movie features a lot of interesting elements,
especially on the visual side, but the fact that the
character motivations are a bit hard to follow, make
the movie a bit confusing.
All movies were very well acted and you will recognize
a lot of familiar faces in all of them. The most shining
performance is from Eric Tsang, in the HK movie Going
Home. His performance was simple but so true and natural
that makes his character very sympathetic and appreciated.
The main kid was also surprisingly good in the movie
and really helped to make the atmosphere even scarier.
The Korean one, Memories, also featured a good cast
but because of the missing development of the characters,
it makes them less likable. The main cast consisted
of a husband and his wife, but since the spectators
spend most of their time thinking about what is going
on, it gives less time to think about the intention
of the characters. I’m not very familiar yet
with movies from Thailand so except the young man
from Tears Of The Black Tigers, I don’t remember
seeing these actors before but most of them were interesting
to follow and had decent acting skill too.
One good thing about Three is that it is not necessary
to watch all of them to really understand their story
but on the other side it would have been great to
have a small or very subtle connection between all
of them. But still, Three is a good movie package
and even if in the end all three movies are not very
scary, it is something that those who like psychological
horror can appreciate. It’s still strange that
the country producing the best horror movie right
now, Japan, was excluded from this production. Maybe
next time…
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DVD
[ NTSC, All Region
] :
This
Panorama movie comes in a very cool 3 DVD package.
Each movie has his own DVD, so knowing that you are
expecting an incredible transfer, unfortunately no.
Each of the transfers, who are all Widescreen LTB,
are generally clear but suffer from a lot of artifacts
on the print but on the other side, all three movies
posses a great DTS audio track. None of the movies
features extras except small filmographies of each
director. Going Home (Hong Kong) is also available
on a separate release with a longer cut.
Reviewed
by Janick Neveu
This
movie was provided courtesy of : 
|
| Story |
Cast |
Entertainment |
Subtitles |
Overall |
| 3.5 |
3 |
3.5 |
4.5 |
3.5 |

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| © 1999-2003 by KFC
Cinema. All rights reserved. |
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