Dumplings (2006)

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

This is a strange film with an unusual central premise.The main characters are all well played and reasonably believable, it is weird that a woman with the key to eternal youth lives in a small flat in a poor part of town and it is hard to understand why Mrs. Li wants her cheating husband back so badly but these character flaws are easy to ignore.The plot twists are all quite small and not hugely surprising, this isn't a film built on surprise it is a character study of a woman so desperate for youth that she will do anything to get it.It's not a film that will leave you amazed or excited or disturbed (unless you are very squeamish) but importantly there is nothing bad about it, it is an unusual idea taken to a logical conclusion with a lot of style and with some good writing and direction.

In Hong Kong, Aunt Mei (Ling Bai) is a cook famous for her home-made rejuvenation dumplings, based on a millenarian recipe prepared with a mysterious ingredient that she brings directly from China. The former TV star Mrs. Li (Miriam Yeoung Chin Wah) visits Mei aiming her dumplings to recover her youth and become attractive again to her wolf husband Mr. Li (Tony Leung Ka Fai). Along the sessions, Mei tells Mrs. Li that she was a gynecologist in China with more than 30,000 abortions along ten years. When Mrs. Li requests an acceleration of the process, the opportunity comes when a fifteen years old teenager with a five months incestuous pregnancy comes with her mother and asks Mei to make an abortion.The bizarre "Gaau Ji" is a low budget Asian movie that Hollywood will never remake. The disturbing and gruesome story depicts an unpleasant theme, certainly a taboo for the American industry, and has excellent performances highlighting Ling Bai making the story totally believable. The Brazilian DVD prudently advises that this film contains strong scenes and is not recommended to pregnant women and sensitive persons, and I totally agree. However, it is highly recommended to audiences that expect to see the break of a taboo in Hollywoodian productions. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "Escravas da Vaidade" ("Slaves of the Vanity")Note: On 28 December 2012 I saw a short version of this film again in an imported DVD ("3 Extremes", segment "Dumplings").

I am new to the Asia Extreme films (the first I saw was Oldboy). I enjoyed it because it evokes a sense of creepiness missing from American made films for a long time. Since I have only seen the short film version of the movie; I feel a bit disadvantaged to comment. That having been said, it was well acted and paced. I will be checking more of these out in the future as an alternative to the redundant "horror" being turned out by Hollywood. Spoiler (maybe).... I believe the woman's lengthened tongue in the final scene is meant to symbolize the monster that her vanity created rather than an actual mutation of her actual tongue.

Okay. Intellectually, I can appreciate what it is trying to say. The social commentary is biting and unflinching. In this film, all of the women are victims in some way of a perverse, materialistic society in which they exist as sex objects and fantasies for men. Once they grow old, they are discarded, their lives now purposeless, impoverished, and empty. The promotion for this film says that Mrs. Li, the protagonist, is motivated by vanity, but this is not quite the case. She is simply so twisted by the need to please her man and, in effect, to survive, that she will commit the most horrifying crime imaginable. I am NOT excusing her behavior- she chose her path for herself, and could have turned back once she realized what was going on- but I think that Fruit Chan is trying to show that society is sick, not simply Mrs. Li. There are also interesting class issues going on. The literal image of the rich making a feast of the poor in order to be rejuvenated is powerful, if disgusting.THIS SAID, I had to walk out of this movie and have a nice cup of tea. I just couldn't stand any more dead babies being chopped up. Fruit Chan spares no one and cares nothing for decency. This movie got me thinking, which I suppose is a good thing, but I'd have maybe rather read this as a novel than see all the gory details in a movie. It is a good film, well made, and says something important about the way we live now, but it is not enjoyable, and unless you know what you're in for ahead of time, and still want to see it, I would advise you stay home.