"Dumplings," directed by Hong Kong's Fruit Chan, takes the debate about stem cells and other recycling of human body material to its ultimate extremity. I don't think the film's science is sound (I sincerely hope not) but the motivation is unassailable: There are some people who will do anything to prolong their youth and beauty.
That's a classic theme in stories of horror and the supernatural, but consider the scenario here. A former TV star (Miriam Yeung) is still attractive, but no longer acting. Her husband goes on long trips without her and doesn't even bother with alibis. She turns to a woman (Bai Ling) she has heard about -- a perky, cheerful type who works out of a small apartment in a high rise. This woman cooks and serves dumplings. "How old do I look to you?" she asks her client. The actress guesses -- oh, about 30. I would have said even younger. The cook says she's a lot older than that.
The secret is in her dumplings. The actress pays for an order, looks at them dubiously, eats them, comes back for more. She thinks she looks better. It's not a Dorian Grey situation but, yes, the dumplings do seem to have an effect. The actress wants more dramatic results, faster. That will not be so easy, the cook says, but she will try. What she does in assembling her ingredients is profoundly disturbing. In some cases it may not technically be illegal, on other occasions it is. Depends on the circumstances. I will not describe her secrets, but I will tell you that you may be profoundly disturbed, and that the movie's last scene, sick and evil as it is, doesn't flinch when it comes to confronting the story's ultimate implications.
The second film is "Cut," from Korea, by Chan-Woo Park, whose haunting "Oldboy" made a stir in 2003 with its story of a man kept captive for years for no reason he can imagine. In this story, a horror film director recovers from unconsciousness to find his wife, a pianist, suspended in mid-air above her piano by an arrangement of piano wires. A young child is bound and gagged on the sofa. The director is tied at the end of a tether allowing him to move only so far.
A laughing, angry man appears. His grudge against the director is interesting: He hates his victim because he is rich, handsome, successful -- and a good man. The captor, on the other hand, is poor, ugly, a failure, and not a good man. He wants to force the director to commit evil, so that he will realize he is not so good after all -- that to be good sometimes means only to have escaped the need to be bad. What the director is asked to do, and whether he does it, and what happens then, you will see for yourself. "Cut" is an effective film, but has a certain contrivance that's lacking in the implacable and selfish horror of "Dumplings."
