'Three ... Extremes' proves successfully chilling

Asian horror like the new "Three ... Extremes" beats an American film like "Saw II" at its own game.

"Extremes" consists of three more artfully directed short tales from Hong Kong's Fruit Chan, South Korea's Park Chan-wook and Japan's Takashi Miike.

Lions Gate Entertainment 'Three...Extremes' B+ The verdict: Proof that Asians have a stranglehold on modern-day horror films. Directors: Fruit Chan, Takashi Miike, Park Chan-wook Starring: Hye-jeong Kang, Kyoko Hasegawa, Atsuro Watabe, Jung-ah Yum, Bai Ling Run time: 125 minutes Release date: Oct. 28, 2005 Rating: R for strong disturbing violent content, some involving abortion and torture, and for sexuality and language. On the web Official movie site Rate 'Three...Extremes'   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

Their tales are indeed extreme.

The first — Chan's equally disgusting and sly "Dumplings" — is a veritable feast of cinematography and the weekend's most intriguingly filmed story, full of arty angles and distinctive lighting. The tale, like a fable, really, involves a woman who makes perfect dumplings — so good and so magnificent that they reverse the aging process of the women who eat them.

Who doesn't want youthful skin? But a wealthy patron gobbles up the dumplings only to discover its secret meat is, well, something with a distinctive crunch.

The second — "Cut" from Chan-wook, who made the revelatory "Oldboy" — involves unsettling torture as a film director is held hostage by one of his acting extras. It involves ritualistic dismemberments, the strangulation of a child and a particularly bloody denouement — all staged in an elaborate setting as uber-designed as the Italian vampire movies of the 1960s.

The third short — "Box" from Miike, who earlier made the riveting and over-the-top "Audition" — is a virtual fairy tale with a bizarre twist ending. It hints at child pornography, live burial and ethereal hauntings in the story of young, twin-sister performance artists who get mixed up in jealousy that leads to death.

Beautifully made, dreamy and deadly, "Box" is also the least gory, yet perhaps the most successfully chilling.