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Oxide and I were born in Hong Kong from nothing. My father was a taxi driver, my mother a housewife.
We grew up with seven brothers and two sisters, but Oxide and I were always the closest.
We had the same interests in ghosts and the supernatural. Even now our beliefs and attitudes coincide 100 percent.
We got into film editing originally to make money. We had no intention of becoming directors.
We make horror films only because that’s what the market dictates. “The Eye” cemented the Pang brothers’ reputation in horror, and that’s where we're stuck now.
Humans have a universal desire to be scared. I’ve made films for Eastern and Western audiences; all crave fear, and all fear the same thing: reality.
I aim to frighten people not just in the cinema, but to trouble them night after night afterwards.
The older I get, the harder it is for me to find films scary.
I believe in the supernatural, 100 per cent. The dead are among us, we just don't notice because we’re not attuned to the right frequencies.
Only one in 10,000 become ghosts after they die. It takes a special person, someone with high energy or unfinished business.
The rest of us die and disappear into nothingness.
I saw a ghost once. I followed a man into an elevator and when I got inside nobody was there, but I could feel his presence. I was scared stiff.
I’d like to make love stories.
I haven’t had any intense love experiences myself, though. The romance in my latest film all stems from the imagination.
Sex and love are completely separate entities for men. We’re biologically programmed that way.
Unlike women, over 90 percent of whom can’t have sex with someone unless they love them.
I prefer the Hollywood system to that of the local film industry. They do things step by step, and take the director’s concerns into account.
In Hong Kong people work too fast, and other people often end up deciding what I want.
Western horror films have to be more logical than Asian ones. Their audiences need a reason for everything. Asian audiences are simply content to be scared.
Hong Kong people only go to movies with big budgets and superstars. As a result, it’s impossible for any new local talent to emerge.
Or at least wait until local audiences get bored and start asking, “why does every film I see star Andy Lau or Tony Leung?”
The only movie that's brought me back to the cinema more than once was John Woo’s “A Better Tomorrow.” I loved the man-to-man relationship, the theme of brotherly love.
Oxide and I envision films exactly the same way, right down to the very angles of each shot. We'll shoot things independently and the footage comes out identical.
There’s never rivalry between us. With so many different directors for me to compete with, it’s pointless for me to focus on him.
If I did fight Oxide, I’d have to kill him. Simply fighting would be a waste of time.
I’ve always believed that if you have an urge to do something that’s not going to hurt other people, then you have to do it.
If you interviewed Oxide instead of me, you’d end up with the same answers.


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Danny Pang

Magazines

Horror filmmaker Danny Pang wishes he could direct love stories. He talks to John Robertson about ghosts, sex and his relationship with twin brother and frequent co-director, Oxide.
