THE FOREST OF LOVE –DEEP CUT–: Sion Sono’s Seven Episode Miniseries Pushes Limits Like Few Others.

By Jake Lankford. Written on April 11th, 2022.

Manic. Dramatic. Disturbing. Riveting. Perverse. Violent. Erotic.

These seven words can easily sum up the 2020 Sion Sono miniseries, THE FOREST OF LOVE –DEEP CUT–, the seven-episode expansion of his 2019 film THE FOREST OF LOVE.

The plot remains the same between both film and series: set in the 1980’s-1990’s, two grieving women, Taeko and Mitsuko, are approached by an amateur film crew who want them both to star in their project. A project that derails once a scheming con artist named Joe Murata enters the picture and pulls everyone involved into his web of lies, evil and cruelty.

The series takes the 151-minute long film and adds an extra 135 minutes, rounding the series length out at 286 minutes. Four hours and 46 minutes of content to watch and potentially discuss. However, this is where the first major aspect of praise for the series comes into play.

THE FOREST OF LOVE –DEEP CUT– does not feel its length at all. Sono is a director with an incredible sense and control of pacing, and that shines especially bright in this miniseries. The series hits the ground running and does not let up at all, it moves at a manic, brisk pace with little time to catch your breath or fully process what you have just seen.

Despite the manic feel to the series, the characters themselves are very well developed and the performances are absolutely entrancing and mesmerizing, with such standouts like Kippei Shiina, who plays the depraved and over the top Joe Murata and Kyoko Hinami, who plays the headstrong yet hurting Taeko. These two are merely a small serving of the menagerie of amazing performances in THE FOREST OF LOVE –DEEP CUT–

Cinematography-wise, the series is frenetic, thanks to the fact that the series is shot on video. I admit, as a reviewer, I am biased towards this style of filmmaking more than the typical shot on film approach to cinematography. Shooting on video allows much more control than shooting on film, but that is just my opinion. The frenetic cinematography adds to the already manic feel of the series, it is distilled chaos in every episode in the best (and worst) possible ways.

Here, we get to both my biggest point of praise, and my biggest criticism: the cruelty. THE FOREST OF LOVE –DEEP CUT– is a series that is unflinching when it comes to its depictions of human cruelty, and while that works for several moments, at other times, it can feel like the series is reveling in shock value and cruelty, pulling away attention from the amazing aspects just to focus on how evil someone can be. Other than that problem, this is an incredibly solid series that proves that Netflix isn’t afraid of allowing creators to let loose and do whatever they want, and while that can be a detriment to other series, it works for a series as chaotic as THE FOREST OF LOVE –DEEP CUT–

All in all, this is a series that is manic, disturbing, erotic, perverted, violent, dramatic but most of all, it is absolutely riveting. It tackles so many themes in its seven-episode run, such as the media’s complicity in evil, grief and trauma, love and hatred and most of all, the innate cruelty in all of us that can be forcibly pulled out through exposure to another act of cruelty.