Forge

Forge is the kind of debut that immediately announces the arrival of a filmmaker with both precision and ambition. With this film, Jing Ai Ng crafts a story that blends the glossy tension of a crime thriller with the intimate textures of a family drama. At its core, the film is about two siblings, Coco Zhang (played by Andie Ju) and Raymond Zhang (played by Brandon Soo Hoo), who have discovered a dangerous talent: the ability to replicate fine art with such mastery that collectors, dealers, and even experts can be fooled. What begins in the seedy anonymity of a Miami motel—with Coco tricking a sleazy appraiser, played by T.R. Knight, into buying a forgery for $20,000—quickly escalates into an elaborate scheme involving high society, old money, and the FBI’s art crimes division.

The brilliance of Forge lies in how Jing Ai Ng refuses to romanticize crime while still allowing the audience to indulge in the thrill of the hustle. Coco and Raymond’s forgeries are not just about money; they are about survival, identity, and pride. Having dropped out of their respective paths—Raymond giving up higher ambitions and Coco sacrificing her art education to care for her father—the siblings channel their frustrations and intelligence into deception. This is where Forge distinguishes itself from the slickness of Hollywood capers like Ocean’s 11: while Ng’s film certainly carries some of that swagger, it is also grounded in the immigrant experience, in the quiet desperation of second-generation children who understand that talent alone rarely earns entry into the gilded halls of privilege. The Zhangs are talented enough to create, yet their environment pressures them to counterfeit. That irony drives much of the film’s emotional weight.

Andie Ju’s Coco is the soul of Forge. There is something magnetic in the way she blends calculation with vulnerability. Her silence carries meaning, and when she does speak, every word feels like a brushstroke carefully chosen to complete the larger canvas. Coco knows she is underestimated by the dealers, collectors, and millionaires around her, and she weaponizes that perception. Brandon Soo Hoo, in turn, plays Raymond with a charming unease: ambitious but cautious, intelligent but often hesitant. Their dynamic as siblings gives the film its strongest moments—whether it’s the quiet recognition of shared sacrifice or the unspoken friction of diverging ambitions. This bond is tested when they cross paths with Holden Beaumont (played with a mix of arrogance and fragility by Edmund Donovan), a trust-fund heir whose hurricane-ravaged art collection provides both opportunity and looming disaster. Holden’s greed mirrors theirs, but without the same stakes. His wealth insulates him, while the Zhangs risk everything for each stroke of counterfeit paint.

Parallel to this underworld of forgery, Forge introduces Emily Lee, an FBI agent portrayed with sharp control by Kelly Marie Tran. On paper, Emily is the foil, the agent closing in on the Zhangs’ operation. Yet Jing Ai Ng deliberately undercuts the traditional “cat-and-mouse” formula. Emily is written as capable but curiously sidelined, her investigation unfolding not as a thrilling chase but more like the inevitable catching up of bureaucracy. Still, Kelly Marie Tran injects layers of cultural struggle into a role that could have been perfunctory. As an Asian American woman in a white male-dominated agency, her weariness and determination echo the Zhangs’ own battle for recognition. The script never binds her story tightly enough to the siblings’, leaving her arc feeling underdeveloped, but Tran’s performance makes you imagine a richer version of the film that explored these thematic parallels more fully.

Stylistically, Forge is a polished experience. The cinematography by Leo Purman bathes Miami in a transitory glow—sleek resorts, sterile art galleries, and grimy motels coexist in a city that feels both alluring and lonely. The score by Ian Chang and Marco Carrión pulsates with electronic tension, recalling the work of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and reinforcing the film’s detached, calculating energy. At times, the production quality belies its indie status, giving the illusion of a studio-backed crime thriller. There is also clear cinephile DNA running through the film: Jing Ai Ng has cited William Friedkin’s To Live and Die in L.A. as an influence, and a painting sequence directly nods to Willem Dafoe’s infamous money-printing scene. These references don’t weigh the film down; instead, they anchor Forge within a lineage of stylish crime dramas, even as it tries to carve its own identity.

Yet for all its elegance, Forge is not without cracks in the canvas. The film’s nearly two-hour runtime stretches its material too thin. There are moments when the drama between Coco and Raymond feels forced through exposition-heavy dialogue rather than lived-in intimacy. Likewise, the investigative subplot drags, offering little suspense since the audience is already aware of every detail. The movie is most alive when it focuses on the process of forgery itself: Coco distressing canvases with coffee stains, mimicking brushstrokes with surgical precision, or inventing a convincing patina of age. These sequences reveal forgery as its own twisted art form, and one can’t help but wonder why the film didn’t lean even more heavily into this craft.

What lingers most after Forge is less the outcome of its crime plot—which unfolds predictably, with greed leading to downfall—than the bittersweet tragedy of Coco’s arc. Andie Ju gives her a remarkable poise, a quiet resilience that hints at the weight of wasted potential. Coco is clearly a gifted artist in her own right, yet her skills are consumed by counterfeiting. When Edmund Donovan’s Holden bluntly asks her if she ever feels bad about faking art when she could create her own, it crystallizes the moral ache at the center of the film. Coco’s realization that deception might offer more validation—and more financial reward—than genuine creation is both heartbreaking and resonant in an era where authenticity often struggles against commerce.

In the end, Forge feels like a film about impostor syndrome disguised as a caper. Jing Ai Ng captures the paradox of outsiders who can mimic success but never feel entitled to claim it as their own. Like a counterfeit painting, the film itself occasionally strains to live up to the prestige it mimics—stylish, polished, but sometimes hollow. And yet, beneath the glossy surface, there is undeniable vitality: a story about art, family, identity, and the lengths people will go to carve a place in a world that insists they don’t belong. For all its flaws, Forge is a daring first statement, one that announces Jing Ai Ng as a filmmaker worth watching, and one that gives Andie Ju a breakout role certain to be remembered.

Forge
Written and directed by Jing Ai Ng
Produced by Damian Bao, Gabrielle Cordero, Liz Daering-Glass, Jing Ai Ng
Starring  Kelly Marie Tran, Andie Ju, Brandon Soo Hoo, Sonya Walger, Eva De Dominici, Edmund Donovan, Elaine Thong, Phillip Andre Botello, Elisa Lau, Matthew Andrew Leung, Jack Falahee
Music by Marco Carrión, Ian Chang
Cinematography : Leo Purman
Edited by Briana Chmielewski     
Production companies : Florida Man Films, Qilinverse
Release date : 
Running time : 114 minutes

Seen on September 8 2025 at the Deauville International Center

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