Danny Pang proves he can no longer see the wood for the trees in this disappointing, ill-conceived, badly scripted horror-thriller…
It was inevitable that such an increasingly prolific output for the Pang Brothers would have an adverse effect on quality. 2007 saw four releases for the brothers Danny and Oxide, both collectively and apart, including their English language Hollywood debut The Messengers, and this very disappointing misfire from Danny.
A dense forest that has become renown as the scene of many suicides over the years also holds the evidence against detective Ha Cun-chi’s (Shu Qi, So Close, The Eye 2) prime suspect in a rape and murder case (Lawrence Chou). TV reporter May (Canto-pop star Rain Li, Re-cycle, House Of Mahjong) has also made the forest her centre of attention, as her sensational reports about it start to propel her career.
Her boyfriend botanist Shum Shu-hoi (Ekin Cheng, The Storm Riders, Heroic Duo) has been experimenting on plants from the forest, believing that they can help detective Ha with her case and act as a lie detector at a re-enactment of the suspects claim that the victim was simply another suicide. And, more incredulously still, she goes along with it.
But Mr. Tin (Lau Sui-ming, Re-cycle, Divergence), who has been a ranger since his daughter went missing many years before, believes there is more to the forest.
Never deciding whether it wants to be a supernatural horror, a melodrama or a really bad X Files episode, Forest Of Death pulls on all these influences to come up with messy film and inconsistent script that would embarrass a 70s B movie, suggesting at different times that the forces at work could be vengeful spirits, curious aliens or the forest itself. True, horror and sci-fi films quite often require suspension of disbelief from their audience, but the script, written by Danny and frequent Pang Brother collaborator Cub Chin (whose acted as assistant director, screenwriter and actor for them since their first movies) would hardly make a believer out of Spooky Mulder.
Flat and undeveloped characters allow no change for the audience to make the sort of investment to care what happens to them, let alone be dragged along with the ridiculous storyline. Ekin Cheng’s performance is so dull as to wonder why his girlfriend – let alone the gorgeous Shu Qi – would be interested in him in the first place. Only Qi herself pulls off a fairly convincing performance as the detective by not overplaying her role and (in as much as she ever can) not looking overly glamorous.
Though capably directed, the film definitely lacks the stylistic flair to which we’ve become accustomed to from the Pang Brothers. There are obvious references to The Evil Dead and The Fog, but nothing that really makes the film Danny’s own. Even the ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ style spirit in the background – which the Pang brothers have excelled at since The Eye – is baldy mishandled and give the subtlety of a sledgehammer. The soundtrack, so masterfully used in previous films to add atmosphere, sadly creates nothing but irritation here.
At its core lies a serious message about increasing amount of suicides – at least that what I’m guessing thanks to Universe, the Hong Kong distributor, deciding not to translate the end credits (the subtitles for the Universe release are actually pretty bad for such a recent movie). Indeed, this subject matter has been something they’ve often returned to, including in both the first The Eye movies. However, here the topic is so heavily and immaturely handled the film just seems in pretty poor taste.
Personally I can’t help but be severely disappointed with this latest output form Danny Pang, and admittedly I’m rating this pretty harshly because I expect so much more from him, and his brother Oxide. Perhaps I should stop setting my sights so high, stop expecting the brilliance of Bangkok Dangerous and The Eye, or even the flawed inventiveness of Re-cycle, and expect more disasters like The Eye Infinity.
Worryingly in the next few months the Pang Brothers will release a Hollywood remake of there first major success Bangkok Dangerous, with a seemingly terribly miscast Nicholas Cage – which incidentally seems to have jettisoned the subplot of the lead assassin being deaf in favour of ripping off John Woo’s The Killer more closely.
Perhaps their sequel to Andrew Lau’s immensely popular The Storm Riders, Storm Warriors – due in 2009 with Ekin Cheng and Aaron Kwok reprising their roles – might finally put them back on course?
DVD details
Distributor: Universe (HK)
Good transfer of the movie, but as mentioned before this has some pretty poor subtitling. The short, unsubtitled 'Making of' featurette and cast and crew info makes for a minimal release.
