Butcher Block is a weekly series celebrating horror’s most extreme films and the minds behind them. Dedicated to graphic gore and splatter, each week will explore the dark, the disturbed, and the depraved in horror, and the blood and guts involved. For the films that use special effects of gore as an art form, and the fans that revel in the carnage, this series is for you.

In 2002, a horror omnibus consisting of three segments from directors across Asia released under the title Three. Two years later saw the release of its follow up; Three…Extremes. A film that lived up to its title with a trio of twisted segments by directors with a reputation for exploring the darkest corners of humanity; Hong Kong’s Fruit Chan, South Korea’s Chan-wook Park, and Japan’s Takashi Miike. Offering up tales of horror not for the squeamish, it made an impression in its U.S. release. Enough to prompt Three to be released stateside under the title Three Extremes II.

It’s often the first segment that sticks out the most in viewers’ memory. “Dumplings,” helmed by Fruit Chan, is also the only one of the three to get its own feature length adaptation. In it, Miriam Yeung plays Mrs. Li, an aging actress desperate to regain her youth. Mostly to attract her own husband, who has secretly become involved with a younger mistress. She finds her way to a seedy building to seek out Aunt Mei (Bai Ling), a woman who not only claims to be much older than she appears but has the secret to becoming youthful again; her special dumplings.

Mrs. Li is horrified to discover the secret ingredient to Mei’s dumplings: fetuses. Preferably around the 5-month old mark. Of course, she’s not appalled enough to stop eating them, because it seems to work. The more it works, the more Mrs. Li returns to buy more. The more she buys, the trickier it becomes for Mei to procure more from her stealthy visits to hospitals. Enter a few notable and stomach-churning abortions. Fruit Chan and writer Pik Wah Lee weren’t playing around with this story.

The next segment, “Cut” by Chan-wook Park, doesn’t hit the same levels of warped as Oldboy and his vengeance trilogy, but it does present an interesting moral conundrum for its characters. I Saw the Devil’s Byung-hun Lee plays the Director, a famous filmmaker held captive by an extra that appeared in five of his films. The extra is jealous of his wealth, and tasks Director with killing a young girl. If he doesn’t, Director’s wife- who’s gagged and bound by sharp wires- will lose one of her fingers every five minutes.

It’s both psychological and physical torture, and if you’re familiar with Chan-wook Park’s work, then you know it won’t end well.

The final segment belongs to Takashi Miike. “Box” is the most atmospheric and gorgeous of the three. In terms of “extremes”, Miike’s is more subdued and fairytale-like. Even still, it’s dark and there’s an implication of incest. So while on the surface level it’s less shocking than a lot of Miike’s output around that time, it’s still pretty warped.

In terms of gore, Three…Extremes starts out with the most gruesome of the bunch. It’s hard to top pulverizing fetuses to stuff into dumplings, anyhow. But hacking off limbs, bloodshed, and burning people alive still offers up enough horror to earn the “extreme” in the title. With their trio of terror, special makeup effects artist Hee Eun Lee (I Saw the Devil, The Host), the cast and crew, and the well-regarded directors of extreme cinema delivered one of the most visceral and memorable horror anthologies of the early aughts.