>>12 SERIES ISSUE #10 OCTOBER 12

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Contents
p.1 Plot p.4 The Cast p.5 Trivia p.9 Review

you are rich but i am free

A rich woman, Mrs. Li, is losing her good looks and longs for passion with her husband, who is later revealed to be having a love affair with his younger and more attractive masseuse. In order to boost her image, she seeks the help of Aunt Mei, a local chef. Mei cooks her some special dumplings which she claims to be effective for rejuvenation. From the very beginning, Mrs. Li was aware that Mei used unborn fetuses imported from the abortion clinic where Mei used to work. She keeps seeking more potent remedies, until one day she is in luck: Mei had just performed a black market abortion on a girl five months pregnant who has been impregnated by her father. After Mrs. Li sneaks a look in the kitchen and sees the fetus, she is initially disgusted and runs away, but later comes back. Mei makes the fetus into dumplings, which Mrs. Li devours. This has a wondrous effect on her libido as she goes into the hospital and has sex with her husband. In a short flash-back, we are shown the girl and her mother riding a bus home after the abortion. After getting off, the girl collapses on the side-walk. With no one around, the mother can only watch as her daughter slips into unconsciousness. Muttering her last words, I dont want to die... she dies soon afterwards, presumably from a ruptured uterus. Mrs. Li hosts a dinner party for her friends, who compliment her and wonder about her newly found beauty and youth. When she joins them, they claim there is a horrid fish-like smell in the air, which turns out to be from Mrs. Li herself. She excuses herself from the table and runs to the bath-tub. Furious with Mei, Mrs. Li calls her, demanding to know what she has ingested. Mei merely claims that an inbred child is the most potent. Curious at what his wife is yelling about, Mr. Li gets on the other line and overhears the conversation between her and Mei about what happened, and pays the latter a visit, inquiring into whether it really works. Mr.

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Plot
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Li eats one of her dumplings and has violent sex with Mei, whom he finds out to be sixtyfour years old, but with a form like a slender thirty-year-old woman. She attributes her looks to her cannibalism. Soon, Mrs. Li realizes that she can not stay young without eating Meis dumplings. Ignorant of her husbands love affair with Mei, she pleads with her to continue to find her the most potent ingredients for the dumplings and promises to pay her handsomely. Presumably a mistress of Mr. Li at that point, Mei ignores Mrs. Lis plea and tears her check into pieces. The next morning, police officers arrive at an apartment, where they find the mother, crying, bloodied and clenching a knife. Upset about her daughters death, she has stabbed her incestuous husband nearly to death. It is implied that upon finding the wife and the dead husband, the police find out Meis identity and raid her apartment. Mei, how ever, has already fled. It is revealed that Mr. Li has impregnated his masseuse. When Mrs. Li catches word of this, she tracks down the pregnant masseuse, planning on having her abort the fetus. Although the young masseuse is comfortable with her pregnancy and wishes to have the child, Mrs. Li convinces her to have it aborted in exchange for a large sum of money. Mrs. Li insists to the doctor that the baby should come out alive. Mrs. Li then takes the fetus and turns it into dumplings, ingesting her husbands child. Mei, we learn, ends up selling dumplings on the streets in Shenzhen.

BAI LIng AS MEI MIRIAM YEUng AS MRS. LI TOny LEung Ka-FaI aS MR. LI PAULInE LAU AS MASSEUSE MIkI YEUng AS kATE MI MI LEE

The Cast

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Dumplings is a 2004 Hong Kong horror film, directed by Fruit Chan. It was expanded from a short segment in the horror compilation, Three... Extremes.

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Trivia
Differences from the version in Three... Extremes Where as the extended version retains much of the plot from the short film in Three... Extremes, the endings differ. The short film focuses solely on Mrs. Lis quest for rejuvenated youth and does not include the masseuse or the subplot involving Mr. Li and aunt Meis love affair. Aunt Mei leaves her home for her own reasons, rather than due to a police raid. Consequently, in place of the masseuses pregnancy, Mrs Li finds that she herself is two months pregnant with a child she was told she would never have. After learning she can no longer get dumplings from Aunt Mei, she decides to do some thing drastic in order to keep her youthful looks. The final scene is of Mrs. Li, in the bath-tub where she has just aborted her own fetus, licking blood from her cheek, having eaten her own child.

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home-made rejuvenation dumplings

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home-made rejuvenation dumplings

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A group of acclaimed creators steps outside the box for Dumplings: Three...Extremes. a ninetyminute version of director Fruit Chans segment of the horror omnibus Three...Extremes (which also happens to be the sort-of sequel to 2002s awardwinning horror anthology Three), Dumplings comes courtesy of a variety of unexpected creators. Based on a novella from Lillian Lee (Farewell, My Concubine), and produced by Peter Chan, the film stars the unlikely pair of box office queen Miriam Yeung and Hollywood actress Bai Ling. It also nixes the supernatural creepiness normally associated with the genre and delivers a haunting and even realistic glimpse at human horrors. As such, it runs the risk of being viewed as pedestrian, especially since Fruit Chan doesnt go way over-the-top aLa Herman yau of The Untold Story. Regardless, this is excellent, though questionably appetizing stuff. Miriam Yeung dons subtle makeup and an unflattering old lady hairstyle to play Ching, a middle-aged former TV star whose best years are far behind her. When we first meet her, shes just shown up at the apartment of Mei (Bai Ling), a mysterious woman whos alluring in a trashy/ sexy way. Immediately, Mei knows that Ching is here to sample her renowned and extremely expensive dumplings. Featuring a glutinous, semitransparent outer skin and filling thats alarmingly pinkish in hue, the dumplings are renowned not necessarily for their taste, but for their reputed anti-aging properties. More to the point, the dumplings are supposed to make a middle-aged woman with sagging skin into a firmskinned goddess bursting with sexually-appealing youth. Or so Mei claims.

unwavering desire

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Chings reason for ingesting the dumplings is no mystery, though. Shes desperate to regain the affection of her husband Mr. Lee (Tony Leung Ka-Fai sporting a white-haired dye job), whos taken to consorting with his masseuse, among other nubile young lasses. Ching longs for him to look at her again, not necessarily because she loves him, but because his disinterest hurts her vanity. Shes no longer the charming, fresh-faced youth who charmed audiences on television (a kind of pseudo-irony since Miriam yeung is still charming, fresh-faced and young), and simply wants to regain the feeling and outward luster of being physically young and beautiful. But, as anyone whos seen a mystery meat movie can tell you, theres a price. However, in this case, Ching may be all too willing to absorb the consequences. The identity of Meis mystery meat is no big surprise. Its actually divulged fairly early in Dumplings, and when the audience is explicitly told, only the most inattentive or unskilled at viewing comprehension will be shocked. Even more, Ching knows from frame one exactly what shes ingesting, which only serves to make her willingness to eat the dumplings even more disturbing. Fruit Chan gives the film slow, deliberate style that reveals with astonishing indifference. Instead of making his revelations the stuff of shock horror, the slow realization of whats in there becomes an absorbing and intriguing experience. Its not whats in there that horrifies, but the mundane and deliberate process of obtaining the materials and preparing the dumplings is given exacting and disturbing detail. The audience is given a ringside view as Mei hunts down her ingredients and prepares them for consumption. The sequences are alternately appetizing and horrifying. It sure looks like shes creating something tasty, but as soon as you figure out whats in there, your stomach may not not forgive you for thinking so. Ching experiences the same mixed emotions as the audience, as her own disgust at eating the dumplings is initially obvious. But since shes so intent on reaping their benefits, she steels herself to eat them. Whats more, she develops a morbid curiosity at the whole process of making these special dumplings, a trait that

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leads her to shock, then acceptance, and ultimately an unwavering desire. The need for Ching to feel young is developed in her quiet attentiveness, and as she deliberately slurps down each dumpling, the camera luxuriously floats over her face, neck, and hands, as if were supposed to see them working their magic. Miriam Yeung brings a quiet and utterly believable emotion to her middle-aged character, and when the stuff starts working, she seemingly starts to glow onscreen. Miriam yeungs work here is head-turning and miles away from Love undercovers goddess of silly, and shes matched by Bai Lings brassy, sexy turn as the amoral Mei. Unfortunately, Meis character is more of a showpiece than an actual living, breathing person, but Bai Ling brings enough animation to her to make her seem real. Well, as real as a near-immortal woman could possibly be. Dumplings does have some rather noticeable debits. Fruit Chans hands-off realism could be undermined by the films fantasy aspect, and the journey taken doesnt result in anything concrete or enormously defining. unlike whats dispensed on the DVD cover blurb, there is no price to pay for eating Meis dumplings. That is, aside from possibly losing ones soul, though not having a soul in the first place seems to be a prerequisite for chowing down on Meis culinary delights. a person doesnt seem to change as a result of eating the dumplings. Rather, choosing to eat them reveals the ugly vanity inherent in the human desire to remain young and beautiful. Wanting to stay as you are makes sense, but to go to such extremes to do it, you have to be one seriously disturbed individual. and apparently, thats what all these characters are: ugly and seriously disturbed.

Since Fruit Chan chooses not to go the over-the-top route, and instead handles matters in a quietly revealing fashion, some people might see Dumplings as boring stuff not worthy of its inherently alarming subject matter. However, the lack of Hey, this is screwed up! astonishment might also be the films greatest strength. Instead of a showy journey into madness and human degradation, we get a disturbing and transfixing revelation of ugliness via the pursuit of beauty. This juxtaposition of the beautiful and disgusting is best demonstrated by Christopher Doyles fantastic cinematography, and is echoed in the glowing radiance of Miriam yeungs flawless skin. Everything about Dumplings is beautiful and almost otherworldly in presentation, from Meis dumplings to Chings dresses to the very color on the walls of Meis apartment. But beneath it allor maybe even on the other side of the walltheres something sick, ugly, and just plain wrong, even if its never explicitly said. That silent, undefined juxtaposition could mean snores for some people, and lovers of Hong Kong Cinemas Category III glory days might find this film tame by comparison. But for discerning audiences who enjoy a film that slowly but surely crawls beneath your skin, Dumplings could be oddly exhilarating, coldly fascinating, and yet utterly affecting stuff. (kozo 2004)

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the human desire to remain young and

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12 series Issue ten

Dumplings