The first film was genius. It was both scary and disgusting while maintaining a hi level of achievement through the collective of directors on the collaboration. The second volume had all the promise of the first, but the stories ended up not being as good. It wasn’t for a lack of directors since they compiled Kim Jee-Woon (A Tale of Two Sisters), Nonzee Nimibutr (Nang Nak) and Peter Ho-Sun Chan (The Eye 1 & 2). Woon’s story revolves around a woman who wakes up in a street after apparently getting hit by a car. She has no memory and a broken cell phone on the ground next to her. All she has past that is a phone number written down in her pocket. She proceeds to try and find out whose number it is and how to get to them. She tries walking, a taxi and any other method to get there she can, but problems are abound. Her husband on the other hand wonders why she has left, as he can’t remember. This part was a decent murder mystery type story, that has become a staple of Asian cinema over the last several years. Nimibur’s story is called “The Wheel” and revolves around a small village/ stage show troop. One of the members, who is a puppeteer tries to get rid of his puppets several times to no avail. He tells his apprentice that they are cursed and he wishes it on no one else. He ends up dead and the apprentice has to teach the village how to work them as they try to create uncursed versions to fight it. In the meantime, the puppets have found a little girl as a host, and they are not happy with what is going on. This story is just a little too reminiscent of “Dolls” to be all that compelling. The acting and direction is fine, just a little unoriginal. The final tale, from Chan, is called “Going Home”. It revolves around two families who live in the same apartment complex. One is a father and his son, who have a strained relationship because the son is overly scared of things and the father is a real man’s man who leaves the child alone and pays no attention to his fears unless calling him a coward. The other family is a couple and their daughter, except the mother is dead. In a grand delusion, the father believes she will wake up, so he keeps her around, sort of similar to Norman Bates psychosis. The dvd features no extras, and doesn’t live up to the first volume. The ho hum aspect of the stories put it on the downside of J-extreme films since we are getting such an influx now and this one is sub par. (Lion’s Gate, 2700 Colorado Ave, Santa Monica, CA 90404) - Myk