The Forest of Love

The Forest of Love follows a con man and a group of aspiring filmmakers who push their way into the lives of two young women scarred by grief. What they present as a film project becomes a means of intrusion, and the relationships that form around it turn out to be far from what they first appear to be. Released in Japan in 2019, the film runs 151 minutes and belongs to the crime and thriller genres.

Sion Sono directed and wrote the screenplay, with Hiroshi Muto producing for TKD. It is the eighteenth of the nineteen films Sono directed in chronological order, arriving after Madly and before Prisoners of the Ghostland. The cast is led by Kippei Shiina as Joe Murata, alongside Shinnosuke Mitsushima, Kyoko Hinami, Young Dais, Eri Kamataki and Yuzuka Nakaya, with twenty-seven credited performers in total.

The film drew mixed-to-favourable notices overall. Its critics' rating of 6.5/10 from eleven reviews is slightly above its audience scores, which stand at 6.2/10 on IMDb from around 3,200 votes and 6.3/10 on TMDB from a much smaller pool of 176 votes. The modest gap suggests critics responded to the film a little more warmly than general viewers did, though the audience numbers point to a limited reach.