Asian Home Cinema: Forest of Death goes to DVD

There’s a notorious forest that for some reason is a popular place for many people to commit suicide, those who come are not only from the surrounding city but also from far away. One day, a criminal has abducted, raped and murdered the prime minister’s daughter in the forest. But the new in-charge detective Ha (Shu Qi) believes that there is something behind, she heads out to the forest where the girls were found killed and quickly realizes that there’s something mysterious about this forest. When desperately looking for clues she meets botanist Steve Shum (Ekin Cheng), a student of botany who has written his doctorate paper on the theory that “Plants are Sentient Creatures”. He spends all his time and efforts trying to prove that plants have feeling and can even communicate, together their conduct an experiment which will analyze the signals collected from the crime scene to disclose the truth and to determine whether or not the suspect is guilty by obtaining eyewitness and evidence: the forest itself. However, Steven’s girlfriend Mary, who works for a major TV station, also heads for the forest to make the location report. Could the trees be the answer to this case, or is there something even more absurd lurking in the deep forest? And will the mystery of forest be disclosed to the public?

“Forest of Death” is supposed to be a horror movie about trees that are able to express their feelings, but this latest solo movie of Danny Pang is in fact more of a mystery-crime-thriller with a slight hint of horror in it, but not nearly enough to make it a horror movie. So this movie will disappoint you if you only decide to watch this movie based on their promotional posters, that probably can make you think this movie is about some creepy ghost girl roaming around in the bushes or about giant trees killing people.

It’s disappointing to see Danny Pang’s solo direction going a little off-track compared to his projects with his brother, Oxide Pang. This movie is slow-moving and lacks the element of horror, and as a science flicks, it never made any serious attempts to build up a strong case for audience to believe what it’s trying to tell.