Sam gang

Three is an omnibus supernatural horror film comprised of three one-hour long mini-features. Each one was produced in a different country, Peter Chan representing Hong Kong, Kim Ji-Woon representing South Corea, and Nonzee Nimibtr representing Thailand.

The opening film, Kim Ji-Woon's "Memories" follows two individuals as they grapple with seemingly missing memories: a man who's wife is missing and a woman who's trying to figure out who she is. The work actually foreshadows a lot of what will eventually show up in Kim's following feature, A Tale of Two Sisters, which I really liked. While the film does feature a number of eerie moments, it also suffers from a lack of a strong story. There's not much to its revelation and the characters are fairly static. To its merit, it's probably the most technically proficient of the three films and certainly the scariest.

The second piece is Peter Chan's "Going Home" and this is probably the best overall of the bunch. While its production values are actually the roughest of the three, the story is probably the highlight of the three. The story is divided into two segments, the first where a cop and his son move into an aging complex where few people live and is seemingly haunted. The second, the cop grapples with a seemingly mad homeopathic doctor who is appearing to pursue the resurrection of his dead wife. The film grasps well its theme and the story has a few interesting revelations to provide while also having something to say about the power of love/hope.

It's not a scary piece for the most part, but despite the production values, the direction appears sure and makes great use of its setting and limitations.

The final film is Nimibtr's "Wheel", which is about an arts troupe grappling with the curse of an evil puppet. This is probably the weakest segment. While it does have some good imagery to offer, the story is confusing, aimless and the scares are without method or meaning. Some of the visuals are chilling, but because of the rather slapdash and sometimes illogical story, the overall effect of the piece is muted.

All in all, I have to say that Three isn't a complete waste of time due to the solid piece by Peter Chan and the stylish opening act. On the other hand, it's weakened by the third piece and while the three do try to take on the same overall concept, they seem to be too divergent to really make a cohesive whole, with Nimibutr's "Wheel" really on a different plane than the other two. Probably better viewing for genre lovers of horror or supernatural films and perhaps for more curious cinephiles, but I don't see that it's going to be particularly impressive for anyone else. 6/10 for Memories, 8/10 for Going Home, 4/10 for Wheel. 6/10 overall.

Note: The US release of this film changes the order of the films around so that it opens with Memories, then goes to Wheel and closes with Going Home. I'm not certain how the Hong Kong and Thai versions of the film orders the three; I watched the Corean version.

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 a bit surprised with the negative reviews of "Three" here at imdb. I thought this was a good movie, chilling and intriguing. The first segment, "Memories", is my personal favourite, good acting and some genuinly scary moments. Much more scary than Final Destination 2 anyway. The 2nd installment is somewhat a disappointment after the great first one. Poor acting, no interest for the characters and not at all scary. The 3rd movie "Going Home" is a beautiful story about true love, perhaps not that scary, but still a great story.

The Asian anthology movie "The Three ", in which three directors from three different countries ( South Korea/Thailand/Hong Kong ) craft individual tales unrelated & wonderful !

A)- The 1st anthology from South Korea (( Memories )){40 minutes} by "Ji Woon Kim" where he presents segment of mystery that try to be so scary . - He's the same director who's presented to us on 2003 , Korea's No.#1 Horror Movie (( A Tale Of Two Sisters ))

*Abu Jarrah's Rating 4/5

B)- The 2nd anthology from Thailand (( The Wheel )){36 minutes} by "Nonzee Nimibutr" who presented his big budget for the ghost story in his well-known film "Nang Nak" inside his segment he's presented an tale of cursed Doll .

*Abu Jarrah's Rating 3/5

C)- The 3rd anthology from Hong Kong (( Going Home )){53 minutes} by "Peter Chan" is the most powerful segment in anthologies .

Who the produced of the famous Hong Kong horror movies as " The Eye 1 & 2" he also produce of "The Eye" remade , and he's the same who directed the pretty romantic first-love film "Comrades: Almost a Love Story"

*Abu Jarrah's Rating 5/5

By the way: There's another version for this segment "Going Home" called [Going Home : Director's Cut] It contains eight minutes of extra scenes not included in the original release ! [61 Mins] (to the best of my knowledge)

As a post-Halloween presentation, Titus Brandsma Center, a Carmelite-run service organization here, held a screening of 3 Asian horror films:Higuchinsky's 'Uzumaki'(Japan), Youn-Hyun Chang's 'Tell Me Something'(South Korea) and 'Three', a trilogy of shorts by Ji-Woon Kim(S. Korea), Nonzee Nimibutr(Thailand) and Peter Chan(Hong Kong). The conceit behind the event was to "run along the same vein" as 'The Ring', a trend-setting, box-office hit Japanese spine-tingler(recently shown on Philippine television in a tolerable Filipino-dubbed version).

OK, 'Uzumaki'(which translates in English as "spiral" or "vortex")is a bizaare study in communal fixation and paranoia, with any swirl-shaped object as the ubiquitous motif. This debut film by Higuchinsky(who worked before as a director of music videos)succeeds in conveying the sense of collective disturbance and fear that grips the small community of Kuzouguchi, its distinguishing claustrophobic quality brings to mind the kind evoked by David Lynch in 'Blue Velvet'--it's only that the Japanese director takes one step further with his really, really fantastic and grotesque turn of events. But I guess that to fully enjoy the film, one should take it AS IT IS, with any "interpretation" of the purported "metaphorical" significance of the spiral following later(in my case, much, much later, if ever).

While 'Tell Me Something', bad luck of all bad lucks, was the much-maligned film in the line-up--with good reason. For despite its fair share of gore and tension, and a good-looking lead pair(the lieutenant and the lady under surveillance), a stubborn fact still shows up:that the film is another jaded offspring of the jaded serial-killer genre(it doesn't really take a lot of mindwork to guess, about 45 minutes--or even less!--into the film, who the murderer is;now, even this is a jaded remark!). Strangely though, on 2nd viewing, I began to find 'Tell Me Something' to be kind of interesting(it appeared that it wasn't really that bad), for at least, it scored a few points in the following:having a toned-down tension, evoking a noirish atmosphere with its rain-drenched urban locale at night and going against the "obligatory" fate of the lead pair being eventually romantically or sexually involved with one another(never mind the lack of a well-defined motivation, anyway, the two are as aloof to each other as they are to the viewers)--sigh, even this is a jaded indulgence!

But I still believe that Korean Cinema is one of the exciting film industries that we have, serving us with a good number of brave and provocative films in recent years, among them, Chul-Soo Park's '301/302', Jin-Ho Hur's 'Christmas in August', Ki-Duk Kim's 'The Isle' and 'Address Unknown', Jung-Ji Woo's 'Happy End' and Ji-Young Chang's 'The White Badge.'

Thankfully, the best was saved for the last, for 'Three' was the clear favorite of the audience(including myself). To be noted particularly are the 1st and 3rd episodes:Kim's 'Memories' and Chan's 'Going Home'(I wish I could say the same for the 2nd short). What I'm interested is how did these 2 episodes work upon the emotion of fear, as it's a given fact that such feeling is the one that films of the horror genre want to arouse mainly from the audience.

In 'Memories', where does fear spring forth? As it turns out, it's from the husband's(Bo-Seok Jong)"ghost of his own making", so to speak, as there's a terrible secret that he tries painfully to conceal. He may have succeeded in keeping it from other people's notice, but definitely not from the prodding of his own conscience, thus the hallucinations and nightmares(even if it appears that these don't seriously bother him at all!).

As it should be, the viewers don't completely have any idea about this "secret" at the start of the film, but through Kim's skillful interweaving of the husband's and the "lost" woman's(Hye-Suk Kim)respective scenes--he, as he confronts his terrifying nightmares;she, as she wanders through a barely-inhabited city, where various omens singularly happen to her--all told with little use of dialogues, it little by little builds up toward the grisly revelation, its utterly nightmarish quality is like Franz Kafka and Edgar Allan Poe have joined forces for the modern times.

The director may have relied on "old tricks" to scare the audience(anyway, it worked), but the best thing is that we can make sense of the fear thus evoked, we can "connect" with it. And this, the fear of having done a terrible misdeed and of having to face up with the nightmares(or "bad memories")that consequently spin out of one's own sinful act--whether one gets away with it or not.

On the other hand, watching 'Going Home' is like watching an assortment of 'Psycho', 'Awakenings' and 'The Sixth Sense.' However, it's of such a potent tragicomic quality that the viewers are still put under the spell, brought into force by a marvelous confluence of terrific performances(with Leon Lai at the forefront)and astounding mood photography(predominantly slimy green)by Wong Kar-Wai's "recording angel", Christopher Doyle.

Going through my files, I came upon my few notes on an early work by Chan, 'He's a Man, She's a Woman'(featuring the late Leslie Cheung), a hilarious comedy of errors-cum-ugly duckling tale-cum-gay film. Having this film in mind as I try to recollect 'Going Home', it makes sense why odd humor shows up from some nooks and crannies of this otherwise poignant and eerie tale of the transgressive power of love. Handled foolishly, this uncomfortable blending of humor and horror might've churned out another low-grade and campy shocker('Starship Troopers' and 'The House on Haunted Hill', anyone?).

Whenever the emotion of fear is aroused in us by this awarded episode, it's FOR Leon Lai's bespectacled, agonizing character--for his not being able to bring up the kind of family that he deserves, for his failure to achieve what could've constituted his happiness in this temporal life(the episode's title, in fact, implies "being with one's family"). And so, as in 'Memories', the "fear factor" here makes sense.