The Eye

The Pang Brothers are Danny Pang Fat (Chinese: 彭發) and Oxide Pang Chun (Chinese: 彭順), twin-brother screenwriters and film directors, born in 1965 in Hong Kong. Among their films is the hit Asian horror film, The Eye, which has spawned two sequels, as well as a Hollywood remake and a Hindi remake. Besides working in Hong Kong, the pair frequently work in the Thai film industry, where they made their directorial debut as a team, Bangkok Dangerous.

Early career

Oxide, the older of the two by 15 minutes, started his career in Bangkok, at Kantana Group’s film labs as a telecine colorist.He made his first film, the experimental karmic thriller, Who Is Running?, in 1997. It was Thailand’s entry for Academy Award for the Best Foreign Film for the 71st Academy Awards in 1998.

Danny is well known as a film editor, and has worked on a number of Hong Kong films, including The Storm Riders and the Infernal Affairs series.

They first teamed up to write and direct the Thai film, Bangkok Dangerous, in 1999. The film won the FIPRESCI Award at the 2000 Toronto International Film Festival and was nominated for best film and best editing at the Thailand National Film Association Awards.

They then made The Eye, which gained the Pangs wider critical acclaim. They made two sequels, The Eye 2 and The Eye 10. An American remake of The Eye was produced by Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner and stars Jessica Alba.

Aside from The Eye and other horror films, the Pangs made two more edgy Thai crime films in the same vein as Bangkok Dangerous, Danny with 1+1=0 and Oxide with Som and Bank: Bangkok for Sale. Together the three crime films form a loose “Bangkok Trilogy”.

Working style

When the Pangs work together, they direct scenes in the film independently of each other. Oxide Pang explains:
“In a shooting location there is always only one Pang at a time; it helps us save our energy. One day I’ll be shooting, the other, Danny will. I know a lot of people are amazed, but we do have a strong connection, I guess, as twins. And we have a lot of meetings on the script, we sit down in front of a storyboard and we have the same visuals conception."

Recent films

Their 2006 horror film, Re-cycle, was the closing film in the Un Certain Regard competition at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. The film reunited the brothers with Angelica Lee, the star of The Eye.

Among their other projects are a Hollywood-backed, English-language film, a thriller called The Messengers, starring John Corbett, which was released in theaters on February 2, 2006, and a remake of Bangkok Dangerous starring Nicolas Cage. Acclaimed film critic Roger Ebert described the film as a: “less than virtuous and, in fact, less a than admissible, pitiful, and pathetic attempt to turn a 1st world profit on a proven and theatrically sound 3rd world production. Headlined by Nic Cage, you can, as usual, expect an inept and deplorable effort, in every way, to remake an excellent movie, purely for the sake of profit, earning it more dollars than sense. If you liked bangkok dangerous better as the Nic Cage remake, you are, in all fairness, far enough into a thorazine drip that your input has long since relinquished its relevance to this society as a whole, that the state should award you two taps to the head and one to the chest, and this film is graciously awarded two thumbs in hades.” Very, very, few, if any film fans will appreciate what was done in this film after having seen the original. One critic likened it to: “How would you like the remake of Pulp fiction?” “Of course, you wouldn’t.”

Oxide produced a remake of Who Is Running? in 2005, called The Remaker, with Mona Nahm directing. He has completed a solo project, Diary, released in 2006. Another solo project for Oxide is The Detective, starring Aaron Kwok, about a detective trying to find a woman, with the only clue being a photograph of her.

Danny also completed a solo project, Forest of Death, a thriller about an enchanted forest. Another solo project by Danny, In Love with the Dead, opened in Hong Kong cinemas on November 29, 2007.

Both Diary and Forest of Death, as well as Re-cycle, were picked up for distribution in the United Kingdom by Image Entertainment. She working currently on the Thailand horror flick The Child’s Eye, which is shot in 3D. Danny Pang directed solo the Chinese thriller film Fairy Tale Killer.

Personal lives

In February 2010, Oxide Pang Chun married Angelica Lee Sin Jie (Malaysian actress-singer), the award winning actress from “The Eye” after they had been dating for 7 years. The celebration was held at the Pangkor Laut Resort. Oxide also has a 10-year-old daughter from his previous marriage. —Wikipedia