Sam gang yi 2004

Critics score:
84 / 100

Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: A bloody strange movie -- and a surprise. Read more

Dana Stevens, New York Times: This trilogy provides a sampler of three short horror films from high-profile Asian directors. Read more

Jeff Shannon, Seattle Times: It's just three gifted filmmakers with vision to spare, daring you to go to their extremes. Read more

G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle: One is haunting and wonderful, one is very good, and one spoils the fun. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: You can't believe what they're doing here. Read more

Bob Longino, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Asian horror like the new Three ... Extremes beats an American film like Saw II at its own game. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: A strong effort from everyone involved, though they're not all wholly successful. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: For those in the middle, fasten your seat belts for a bumpy ride -- narratively and artistically -- and don't go in on a full stomach. Read more

Kevin Crust, Los Angeles Times: All three look great and the filmmakers deliver a certain artiness, but their overall triviality and the unpleasantness of the first two make for an extremely distasteful experience. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: 'Cut,' Park's contribution to Three... Extremes</i, will probably delight critics as much as his other films, yet its premise -- a psychopath holds a man captive and pressures him to kill an innocent person -- is almost identical to that of Saw. Read more

Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle: It has three stories, and each is extreme. Yet even literalism can be an understatement. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Makes a persuasive argument for what's wrong with so many horror films today. Read more

Gregory Kirschling, Entertainment Weekly: Another pulpy Creepshow movie would be more welcome than a second installment of this stiff stuff. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: Miike, known as Japanese cinema's bad-boy shock master, delivers the most textured, delicate and finely crafted episode of the bunch. Read more

Ben Kenigsberg, L.A. Weekly: Title notwithstanding, Three . . . Extremes really offers only two. The first is one of nausea. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Evokes a queasy fascination. Read more

Jami Bernard, New York Daily News: Blood, grotesquerie and humor mix equally in the first two, but the full combo makes a savory witches' brew for Asian-cinema cultists (or Halloween lovers in need of a gore fix). Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: What all three of these stories share is the quality found in Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft and Stephen King: An attention to horror as it emerges from everyday life as transformed by fear, fantasy and depravity. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Three of Asia's best-regarded young filmmakers contribute to this terror trilogy, each giving his segment a distinctive flavor of bleak black comedy and elegant dread. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

David Rooney, Variety: Bracingly twisted. Read more

Michael Atkinson, Village Voice: A black-blooded hoot. Read more

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: The first is the best, the second most riveting, the third most disturbing, but all will stay with you for weeks. Read more