Parallel Forest

平行森林

China, 2021, colour, 2.35:1, 101 mins.

Director: Zheng Lei 郑雷.

Rating: 4/10.

Good-looking, ambitious mystery-thriller is let down by a script that’s not up to the job.

STORY

East Lake Scenic Area, Jiayin county, Heilongjiang province, northeast China, near the Russian border, autumn. Bai Ling (Zhao Xiaodong) and his wife Du Yan (Tang Xiaoran) own a big mansion-like hotel by the lake; but it hasn’t been a commercial success and they are now heavily in debt. Over a year ago their son Tongtong died in a car accident when a tyre burst while Du Yun was driving; he was in a coma for over two months. The tourist season is now over, and Du Yan’s elder brother, Du Gang (Liu Weisen), is staying with them. He recommends they accept an offer from a friend of Du Yan, though Du Yan herself would like to keep the hotel and organise skiing holidays in the winter. During the previous night there was a fierce storm in part of their land – in a forest once owned by a group of foreigners rumoured to have conducted scientific experiments that were stopped by the authorities. Du Yan goes there to check on the situation after the storm, taking a rifle as there are wild boars in the area. After being shot at in the forest, she fires back and seems to wound someone who has a speedboat on the lake. Back at the hotel she tells Bai Ling she can’t remember the events too clearly; that evening they have a picnic dinner together by the lake. Early next morning Du Yan takes a boat across the lake to where she saw the person with the speedboat. She finds a fenced-off area with old signs in Russian and English, plus radioactivity warnings. After getting lost in the forest, she finds her boat gone, so uses the speedboat to get back. She tells Bai Ling how, walking in a straight line through the forest, she came to the same place where she entered it; also, the person who shot at her the day before looked like herself. She thinks the place is a kind of “parallel forest”. Bai Ling says she’s imagining things, and should go back to seeing the psychologist who treated her after their son’s death. But Du Yan is convinced she’s in a parallel universe, and goes back to the forest to prove it.

REVIEW

A modestly budgeted but good-looking mystery-thriller set in remote northeast China, Parallel Forest 平行森林 is an ambitious attempt at a sci-fi theme that’s let down by a script not up to the job. The first film of writer-director Zheng Lei 郑雷, 38, who previously worked as a TV host on Zhejiang TV prior to entering the film industry in 2016, it was completed in 2019 (and first shown in the Industry Screenings of that year’s First Film Festival, in Xining, that July) but was only publicly released this autumn, to a microscopic RMB220,000 box office. Reportedly, Zheng is currently working on his second feature,  Interview Time 访问时间, also on a sci-fi theme.

With a tiny cast of basically three people, the plot centres on a young wife (played by Tang Xiaoran 唐小然) who co-owns with her husband (Zhao Xiaodong 赵小东) a large, remote mansion that’s failing economically as a resort hotel. The couple are heavily in debt and her elder brother (Liu Weisen 刘蔚森) recommends they sell it, but the wife, who’s still recovering psychologically from the death of her son a year ago, is loath to do so. While visiting a mysterious woodland area following a fierce storm, she believes she gets trapped in a parallel universe – and not just her. Zheng’s script flirts with lots of ideas – the forest was once used by “foreigners” for some kind of scientific experiment, the couple’s marriage is still haunted by their son’s death, the whole thing could be just the wife’s fantasy – but the thin material is too stretched to grab the viewer’s intention, and the whole idea feels as if it hasn’t been fully thought through. The film’s main title suddenly appearing 30 minutes in just seems show-offy.

Given that the whole film is from her character’s point-of-view, Kunming-born Tang, 30, who’s mostly done TV and small-screen films, does a plucky job as the wife in psychological peril but sometimes looks as if she doesn’t believe some of the (very average) dialogue either. As the husband, newcomer Zhao can’t do much with an underwritten role, while Liu is just okay as the brother. The film’s technical side is much more assured, with smooth editing and some striking widescreen vistas of the East Lake Scenic Area in Jiayin county, Heilongjiang province, right up against the Russian border. The location has a placeless look, more Western than Asian, and d.p. Wang Weibing 王唯冰 acutely captures the clear autumnal light and the timeless feel of a resort out of season. A US remake of the film is reportedly in the works.

CREDITS

Presented by Jiayin Dake Yutian Media (CN).

Script: Zheng Lei. Photography: Wang Weibing. Editing: Hong Yu, Bu Pengzheng. Music direction: Chen Lehuan. Art direction: Gong Qingping. Styling: Chen Jiandi. Sound: Jiang Hu, Gu Xiaolian, Huang Sheren. Visual effects: Wang Zhixiao. Executive direction: Chen Yongjian.

Cast: Tang Xiaoran (Du Yan), Zhao Xiaodong (Bai Ling), Liu Weisen (Du Gang, Du Yan’s elder brother), Li Qi, Ma Xiangyun, Li Xue, Leng Chuchu, Deng Fangyi.

Release: China, 15 Oct 2021.