A young woman gives birth to a fully-grown (and fully-tattooed) yakuza boss. Mirror images reach out through the looking glass to slit your throat. Alien invaders masquerade as the CEOs of multinational corporations. And a lactating geriatric. It must be time for this year’s mini-festival of Asia Extreme weirdness from Tartan and Tiger Beer.

With the increasing popularity and prominence of such purveyors of the perverse as the Pang Brothers, Hideo Nakata, Kim Ki-Duk and Takashi Miike, and in the wake of the success of last year’s selection of inspired and inspirational oddities from Japan, Hong Kong and Korea, Tartan has unearthed another magnificent seven examples of why eastern cinema demands our attention (and, occasionally, our slack-jawed horror). It seems that there is no end to the dark surrealism and depraved splatter lurking in the dank imaginations of these filmmakers.

The current crop of Asia Extreme releases shows a noticeable shift away from Japan, Hong Kong and Thailand as the main suppliers of genre-bending movies, with Korea emerging as the pre-eminent exporter of twisted cinema with five of the seven movies in the mini-season hailing from that corner of the globe.

Of the two Japanese offerings, one is Chaos, a 1999 thriller from Hideo Nakata, (wedged somewhere in his oeuvre after Ringu and before Dark Water), and the other is the dreamlike yakuza freakery of Gozu, from the frighteningly prolific Takashi Miike. Reunited with writer Sakichi Sato for the first time since Ichi the Killer, fans looking for the extreme gore of that masterpiece should be prepared for something slightly different. The tone of this 2003 offering is closer to the quirky oddities of David Lynch, as yakuza underling Minami finds himself lost in a small town looking for his (maybe) dead boss, his efforts frustrated at every attempt by an endless succession of transvestites, masochists, men in spangly shell-suits, and an ox-headed demon.

The Korean quintet includes old-fashioned ghost story A Tale of Two Sisters, very much along the lines of The Others, which shares the unique dual distinction of being both the weakest film of the season, and the only film in the set that genuinely disturbed and unsettled me. Nevertheless, there is much to enjoy here, and the film has a striking gothic ambience.

In the wake of Ringu, Ju-on and Dark Water, Phone may seem like just another story about the frailty of modern relationships and the inescapability of technology, in a long line of tales that only achieve a certain level of resonance from a part of the world equally famed for both its spiritualism and technological achievement. With this story of a haunted mobile phone, any feelings of “been there, done that” are soon dispersed by its slick execution and a stunning performance by child actress Seo-woo Eun in a role that demands her to convincingly shift from cute and cuddly to dark and terrifying within a bleep of a ring tone.

Into the Mirror has all the trappings of a conventional cop movie with supernatural overtones, laden with a strong production design, full of cavernous rooms, homicidal doppelgangers, and sterile chrome and glass occasionally stained by arterial sprays of crimson. The most obviously commercial film of the lot, numerous plot strands slowly build to a satisfying conclusion that manages to be both bleak and optimistic.

The first of my two favourite movies of the lot is the genre-defying Save the Green Planet!, which bounces from slasher movie to science fiction, taking in horror, comedy, thriller, serial killer movie and police procedural, leaving you disorientated, dizzy and exhilarated in an unpredictable (and no doubt virtually unmarketable) slice of pure brilliance.

Shin Ha-kyun, so brilliant in last year’s Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, excels once again in the challenging and magnetic central role of Byung-gu, holding all the disparate shifts in the film’s mood and style in his grasp. Do not miss this phenomenal future cult classic.

Kim Ki-Duk’s powerful movie The Isle has been sitting on a shelf for far too long, terrorising the BBFC with its scenes of fish-gutting, frog-smashing and dog-kicking. But, as we all know, what you don’t see is frequently worse than what you do, and you’ll never be able to look at a fish hook again without having your stomach roll over a couple of times.

Suh Jung is the mute Hee-jin, providing everything from coffee to her own body to the fishermen on a remote lake, in a film that effortlessly switches from lush, heart-breaking tranquillity to sickening body horror, and encapsulates feelings of elation and foreboding simultaneously. The severe hardened beauty of the dreamlike narrative is both seductive and repellent, in a masterpiece where happiness is a bright yellow houseboat.

In a cinematic landscape increasingly crowded with empty Hollywood confections that leave you feeling unsatisfied and cheated, any one of these films will reaffirm your faith in contemporary film. Go in with your mind wide open, your eyes peeking through your fingers, and your stomach empty.