Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s The Samurai and the Prisoner

Lord Murashige Araki, the Daimyo of the Setssu-Ikeda clan, has the good fortune to command his forces from Arioka Castle, which is almost like the Helm’s Deep of 1580s Japan. However, he also needs a detective equal to Eco’s Brother William of Baskerville. Instead, he has his sworn enemy, Oda Nobunaga’s tactician, Kanbei Kuroda, secretly chained-up in his dungeon. Kuroda has plenty of time to apply his deductive reasonings to Araki’s mysteries, but the verbal sparring inevitably reveals the precariousness of the Lord’s position in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s The Samurai and the Prisoner, adapted by the filmmaker from Honobu Yonezawa’s novel, which opens tomorrow in New York.

As Araki explains to Kuroda, he initially allied his clan with Oda, believing his drive to unify Japan would bring stability and save lives in the long run. However, has turned against the warlord, because his savagery and ruthlessness were a cure that was worse than the disease. Kuroda does not necessarily disagree, but he argues Oda simply has too much support solidified for Araki’s rebellion to succeed. Having failed to sway Araki, Kuroda fully expects to be decapitated, because such was the lot for unconvincing emissaries.

However, Araki breaks with tradition, chucking the illustrious strategist into his dungeon instead. Kuroda is greatly offended by this breach of the bushido code. It also pains him knowing Oda will surely execute his family, assuming he defected to Araki’s side.

Indeed, Araki is so tired of killing, he also refuses to kill his own “hostage,” when the boy’s clan leader father switches back to Oda. Indeed, Araki’s wife Chiyoho clearly developed motherly feelings towards the young lad. Hence, Araki is quite annoyed when a mystery archer kills the youthful hostage with a “magic” Oswald-worthy arrow. To some, the crime appears divinely inspired, but Araki recognizes it as a threat to his clan’s stability and his own legitimacy.

As the year unfolds, each season yields yet another symbolically significant crime. Predictably, Araki trudges down to consult with Kuroda, almost like Clarice Starling facing Hannibal Lecter. Of course, in addition to a mystery (or rather a series of four linked mysteries), Kurosawa’s adaptation of Yonezawa is an elegant Jidaigeki samurai film, with an emphasis on diplomacy and statecraft, at their darkest and most ruthless. Reportedly, Kurosawa embraced the tradition of classic samurai films, including even those of his namesake, but he maintains his constant fascination with humanity’s destructive tendencies.

He also wrote a heck of an adaptation, because it would probably take several reams of paper to fully illuminate the in’s and out’s of the four cases. It is rather amazing that he successfully wraps up the film in just under two and a half hours, while maintaining a stately vibe of high tragedy. This is by far Kurosawa’s best film since his one and only previous “period production,” the 1940s wartime thriller, The Wife of a Spy.

The cast is also uniformly excellent, balancing restraint and passion, as befits the master filmmaker’s masterworks. They probably all knew on some level this would be a film with a long and enduring life. In the lead, as Araki, Masahiro Motoki projects the cool commanding confidence and the disciplined righteousness of a leader whose men will follow into battle and likely death. Similarly, Yuriko Yoshitaka is heartbreaking and even a little scary as Chiyoho, who witnessed Oda’s cruelty first-hand, as one of the few surviving members of a rebellious Buddhist movement he violently suppressed—a fact that proves highly significant.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Chime

Those noises in your head can really do a number on your sanity. Just ask the narrator of Poe’s “A Tell-Tale Heart.” However, it is not clear whether Takuji Matsuoka truly hears them. Regardless, it seems that he “contracted” the insanity of someone who did in director-screenwriter Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 45-minute short-ish film, Chime, which opens this Friday together with Kurosawa’s classic The Serpent’s Path (the original, not Kurosawa’s recent remake).

Matsuoka works as continuing ed. culinary instructor, but he clearly yearns to return to the kitchen as a head chef.  He is not a great teacher, but to be fair, most educators would struggle with a weirdo like Ichiro Tashiro. When Tashiro complains about hearing chimes inaudible to the rest of the class, Matsuoka tries to ignore him. However, he can’t ignore what comes next.

Does Matsuoka inherit his craziness, or did he always have it? Did Tashiro’s horror show simply provide a catalyst for releasing it? Kurosawa clearly wants to keep the answers to such questions ambiguous, perhaps even unknowable. Regardless, Matsuoka takes a sinister turn that even surpasses Tashiro.

Arguably, Chime feels like Kurosawa, the horror master, taking a stab at more subtle and slippery “elevated” “post-horror.” There are shocking moments, but Kurosawa too coyly toys with the horror elements to sustain much tension.

As Matsuoka, Mutsuo Yoshioka’s performance is defined by an utter soullessness, even before his apparent insanity kicks in. Yet, Seiichi Kohinata is more disturbing as Tashiro, due to his twitchy, awkward sadness.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cloud

Ryosuke Yoshii is the kind of reseller who has a one-star rating on ebay (or it is fictional equivalent). Yet, people still buy from him. Big surprise—they often regret it. Unfortunately for him, some of his disgruntled suppliers and buyers start getting organized “in real life” in director-screenwriter Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cloud, which opens tomorrow in New York.

It is easy to see why Yoshii has so much bad karma from the first transaction Kurosawa depicts. Having commissioned a run of counterfeit medical devices, Yoshii renegotiates for a fraction on the Yen, because it would cost the small workshop more to have them carted away as rubbish. Then he sells the entire run to desperate buyers, even though they are worthless.

These sharp practices led to the creation of a large network of online haters. Starting to feel the heat, Yoshii uses his next big score to relocate to the countryside. Nevertheless, Yoshii fears some of his shadowy stalkers followed him to the boonies. Increasingly paranoid, Yoshii’s emotional withdrawal pushes away his girlfriend Akiko. He also fires his new assistant, Sano, but the former protégé remains loyal to Yoshii, for reasons that are never fully explained. Dano also happens to have a certain set of skills, honed during his previous employment as a Yakuza enforcer.

Eventually, Cloud morphs into a reasonably effective stalker-payback thriller. Nevertheless, it is remarkable how far this film coasted on Kurosawa’s reputation, including its selection as Japan’s international Oscar submission. Most viewers who are unaware of its pedigree would assume it is merely a small, grungy exploitation movie, because that is exactly how it presents itself. Indeed, this film is small in scope and rather shallow. However, the concluding action sequence is admittedly lean, mean, and relentlessly tense.

Japan Cuts ’25: Serpent’s Path

With this film, Kiyoshi Kurosawa joined the company of Michael Haneke (Funny Games), Takashi Shimizu (The Grudge), George Sluizer (The Vanishing), and Ole Bornedal (Nightwatch). All have helmed remakes of their films in different languages. Admittedly, Japanese can still be heard in Kiyoshi’s new take on his 1998 dark thriller, but French is the primary language—logically so, since it is set in and around Paris. Weirdly, one of the major themes was lost in translation, but human nature remains just as dark and brutish as ever in Kurosawa’s Serpent’s Path (2024), which has its East coast premiere tomorrow, as part of the 2025 Japan Cuts.

Schlubby, grieving Albert Bacheret and straight-arrow psychiatrist Dr. Sayoko Mijima are a mismatched odd couple, but they are about to pull off the daring daylight abduction of Laval, a prominent attorney. He should have been more discerning in his choice of clients.

Viewers deduce relatively quickly that Laval represented “The Circle,” an organ-trafficking cult that murdered Bacheret’s young daughter. Tormented by grief and guilt, Bacheret now only lives for revenge. However, as the trail leads the duo to high-ranking members of the Circle, Bacheret grows wary and apprehensive. He understands just how dangerous they are, because he once worked for them. Right, that’s awkward.

Aurelien Ferenczi’s adapted screenplay remains largely faithful to Hiroshi Takahashi’s original, but it transforms the distraught father’s accomplice from a math teacher into a doctor. As a result, the mathematical motifs all go out the window.

While that character change might trouble admirers of the 1998 film, Ko Shibasaki’s powerhouse portrayal of Mijima is definitely the remake’s greatest asset. She is quiet, but her presence is electric. Frankly, Damien Bonnard is completely outclassed as the basket case, Bacheret.

Penance, on OVID.tv

Asako Adachi is a mother worthy of Greek tragedy. When her daughter is murdered, she offers a grim choice to the girl’s four friends who saw, but could not identify her killer. Either spend their lives hunting for the murderer, or eventually accept a karmic retribution that she approves of. That is pretty heavy for elementary school students, so it is hardly shocking they all turn out to be emotionally damaged fifteen years later in Japanese auteur Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s five-episode Penance, which premieres today on OVID.tv.

For some reason, the killer deliberately chose Emili from her group of friends, when he approached them on a pretext. They all had a perfect view of him, yet they all insist they cannot remember his face. Fifteen years later, their bill of penance starts to come due, but it is not necessarily Adachi who will collect. Somehow fate, karma, circumstances, and their own bad choices and character flaws will precipitate crises for all four survivors. Although they each have very different personalities and perspectives on that fateful day, they all contact Adachi as they find themselves facing personal disaster.

In some ways, shy Sae Kikuchi never fully matured, so she married a profoundly flawed control-freak husband. Maki Shinohara became a strict martinet high school teacher, who feels compelled to enforce rules without exception. Akiko Takano is a borderline hikikomori with family issues that are about to get much worse. Likewise, Yuka Ogawa has an extreme case of sibling rivalry, as well as a weird cop fetish, born out of that horrific experience.

What really makes Penance so intriguing is Kyoko Koizumi’s haunting performance as Adachi. Instead of a ruthless Medea-like vengeful mother, she is not without sympathy for the four young women. In fact, she even offers them help, at times. Yet, her eyes are always obsessively on the prize of just payback. As a result, Koizumi’s work as Adachi is cool and detached, but weirdly easy to identify with and root for.

Yu Aoi, Eiko Koike, Sakura Ando and Chizuru Ikewaki all create radically different personas as the four grown women, but they are all fully developed, with no shortage of flaws and weaknesses. Together, they demonstrate the perverse and lingering effects of trauma. Shinohara’s story is possibly the richest, because it clearly offers extensive commentaries on the compulsive face-saving and CYA-ing of the Japanese educational system, which in turn is a proxy for society at large. Takano’s is probably the weakest, because it is pretty easy to predict where it goes.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Wife of a Spy

In 1940s Showa era Japan, wives were expected to be loyal to their husbands, but everyone was supposed to obediently serve the state. Consequently, Satoko Fukuhara finds herself feeling conflicted when she suspects her husband of conspiring against the militarist government in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Wife of a Spy, which opens today in New York.

Yusaku Fukuhara owns a prosperous trading company. That means he has always been a good provider, but it also brings him into contact with foreigners, like his American customer, Mr. Drummond, who will be expelled from the country after spending an inhospitable night with the police. Clearly, the significance of the incident registers more with Fukuhara than his wife. Shortly thereafter, Fukuhara leaves for Manchuria with his nephew Fumio Takeshita, hoping to find business opportunities. Instead, they witness wholesale atrocities.

Meanwhile, Satoko Fukuhara’s old torch-carrying school friend Yasuharu “Taiji” Tsumori starts nosing around. He returned to Kobe as an extremely rigid police intelligence officer. Tsumori was already predisposed to dislike her husband, even before his investigations turn up reasons to suspect the trader/traitor. However, he hopes she will be a different case entirely. Indeed, the question of just where her loyalties and motivations lay is what this film is all about.

Wife is part thriller, part tragedy, and part historical indictment. In terms of genre, it represents a departure for Kurosawa, but the tone of restrained, almost suffocating foreboding is not unlike some of his finer horror films. It is not exactly a classic nail-biter, but there are several shocking developments.

Yu Aoi, who has been something like Japan’s national sweetheart after emerging as a child-star, is instrumental to this film’s success. She looks innocent, but she can certainly surprise viewers. Ultimately, she takes her character to some very dark places, especially during the third act. Similar praise goes to Issey Takashi playing her husband. These are two very intriguing performances, because they convince us both spouses are smarter and more complicated than they appear.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s To the Ends of the Earth

Uzbekistan has an authoritarian government that effectively outlaws any organized opposition. Freedom House scored it a “2” on a scale of 100 in their democracy rankings, but sure, by all means, consider it for your next vacation. Yoko’s vapid travel show will help you plan your trip. In doing so, she endures constant indignities in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s To the Ends of the Earth, which opens today via the Metrograph’s virtual cinema.

Yoko is the on-camera talent, but Yoshioka, the producer, and his crew show her little respect. Sometimes Iwao the cameraman is sort of an exception, but Yoko still feels very much alone during the shoot. The centerpiece of the Uzbekistan episode is supposed to involve catching a rare bramul fish in Aydar Lake, but the darn fish just won’t cooperate. Of course, the traditional fishermen do not help much when they balk at the notion of a woman on a boat.

Ends of the Earth runs nearly two full hours, but there is not a lot of narrative stuff going on in there. Yet, it is often extremely uncomfortable to watch, especially when Yoko is forced to ride a sketchy amusement park deigned to approximate the G-force of cosmonaut-training, over and over again. Eventually, a bit of suspense crops up in the third act, followed by a genuinely moving emotional payoff, but it takes a forced march to get there.

As a Japanese/Uzbek co-production, the film was conceived to commemorate the 25^th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two nations (we all celebrated in our own special ways, didn’t we?) and the 70^th anniversary of the Navoi Theater in Tashkent (which truly looks majestic on-screen). Yet, it often makes the Uzbek people appear less than enlightened. Regardless, Ends of the Earth represents a huge change of pace from the horror films Kurosawa is famous for, but arguably, it has a greater sense of foreboding than Tokyo Sonata, his last non-genre ringer.

He really puts a heavy load on Atsuko Maeda’s shoulders, but she carries it admirably. She is in every scene, some of which are clearly physically demanding, but she holds our attention and our sympathies every second. She also sings marvelously in two key scenes. It is a great performance, but it makes us start resenting Kurosawa for his treatment of her character.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Bright Future

It is the Incredible Journey of jellyfish movies. It also follows in the long Japanese cinematic tradition of disaffected young adults. However, unlike the “Sun Tribe” movie characters, Yuji Nimura and Mamoru Arita are decidedly working class. The latter is also clearly sociopathic. Yet, they both have a strange affection for Arita’s pet jellyfish in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Bright Future, which re-releases today via the Metrograph’s virtual cinema.

When the film starts, the two slacker friends are working at an industrial laundry, but they might take off at any time.  Nimura thinks they will be like the two guys in Route 66, so he is surprised when Arita decides to move on without him. Nevertheless, he readily agrees to care for Arita’s jellyfish, at least until he returns for it. It turns out that will take much longer than either of them anticipated, because of a shocking impulse Arita indulges.

This turn of events leaves Nimura in a confused state of depression, which only deepens when he accidentally allows the jellyfish to leak into the canal. However, he finds some unlikely companionship with Shinichiro Arita, his friend’s father, who is even more estranged from the rest of his family than he was from Mamoru. Nimura even starts to learn the junk dealing trade, until he is distracted by sightings of the jellyfish in the waters flowing around the city.

If you learn nothing else from this film, you must remember jellyfish are poisonous. They can also be hypnotic, at least when filmed by Kurosawa and cinematographer Takahide Shibanushi. This is definitely a film of stark yet subtle shades, shifting from black-and-white to sepia tones, and back to grainy gray-scales, with the spectral colors of the jellyfish most haunting of all. You can tell just by looking the title holds all kinds of ironies.

It is also strangely absorbing. This is really not another horror film from Kurosawa, but it is certainly some kind of genre movie. Major crimes are definitely major crimes and there might even be the hint of the supernatural. More importantly, it offers a meditation on friendship and human connection. Kurosawa vividly and compellingly shows viewers how the passive Nimura’s problematic friendship with the dominant Arita continues to have a corrosive effect on his subsequent relationships.

NYFF ’17: Before We Vanish

What does it take to make a person hasten the extinction of their own species? In Liu Cixin’s Three-Body Problem, witnessing the cruelty of the Cultural Revolution causes a highly trained scientist to lose all her fellowship with humanity. In the case of Sakurai, it is the promise of an exclusive story to end all exclusives, but to be fair, he isn’t really human. He is a journalist. The question of what it truly means to be human is examined on philosophical and emotional levels in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Before We Vanish (trailer here), which screened as a Main Slate selection of the 55^th New York Film Festival.

Narumi Kase’s salaryman husband Shinji has been acting weird ever since an alien parasite commandeered his body, but he is actually easier to live with. He is one of three alien scouts collecting information in advance of the apocalyptic invasion. The aliens don’t write bureaucratic reports. Instead, they retrieve entire human concepts, like “work” and “family” straight from human’s brains. Rather inconveniently, the process erases all comprehension of the concepts from the minds of their mere mortal subjects. However, alien Shinji will not do that to his human wife, because he has appointed her to serve as his “guide” during the recon mission.

While working the story of Akira Tachibana, a parasite-carrying teen suspected of gruesomely murdering her family, Sakurai is approached by the cocky young Amano, who asks the journalist to be his guide while he is on earth. Initially, he agrees to humor the strange slacker, but he soon finds himself in over his head. Sakurai is indeed helping to usher in the alien invasion, which horrifies him. Yet, he might be sufficiently curious and disillusioned to play out his part to the end.

Although recent films like Journey to the Shore and REAL have been criminally underappreciated by critics, nobody has been better at realizing intellectually challenging and psychologically sensitive science fiction. This is especially true of Vanish, which Kurosawa and Sachiko Tanaka adapted from a stage play by Tomohiro Maekawa. Their screenplay directly asks viewers to really question what things like love and family mean to us. Believe it or not, it also presents the organized Christianity in a highly favorable light. Yet, more than anything, it is a love story between Narumi and alien Shinji, who seems to identify and amplify the best of who human Shinji was, from the dormant kernel remaining inside him.

Masami Nagasawa is absolutely terrific as Narumi Kase. It is a grounded but surprisingly soulful portrayal of a woman facing unimaginably cosmic challenges as well as the undignified trials of everyday life, facing them on roughly equal footing. She also develops tremendous chemistry with Ryuhei Matsuda’s alien Shinji. It is a tricky part for him, because the body-snatched salaryman is necessarily distant and socially awkward, yet he subtly but perceptibly shows hints of his growing emotional attachment to Narumi.

Whether it works for you or not, it must be said Vanish ends like no other alien invasion film ever has before. Ultimately, it is a tragedy, but it gives us hope for humanity. Characteristically thoughtful and deeply moving, Before We Vanish is easily one of the best science fiction films of the year. Enthusiastically recommended, Before We Vanish next screens tonight (10/2) as part of Beyond Fest and October 21^st and 22^nd during the Chicago International Film Festival, following its sold out Main Slate screenings at this year’s NYFF.

Japan Cuts ‘17: Daguerrotype

If any old picture is worth a thousand words than the sweat equity that goes into a daguerreotype ought to increase the exchange rate dramatically. In fact, a rather anti-social photographer is convinced daguerreotypes constitute the only true photography. The punishing lengths of time he requires his subjects to sit almost seems to be part of their appeal. Not surprisingly, the only models who would regularly endure his long sittings were his late wife and his neurotic dead-ringer daughter. As a result, his new assistant will be walking into a rather tense family dynamic and maybe, possibly a slightly haunted house in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s first French language film, Daguerrotype (trailer here), which screens during the 2017 Japan Cuts Festival of New Japanese Film in New York.

Jean is initially hired as Stéphane’s assistant precisely because he has no proper photography baggage. He also doesn’t seem to mind working long hours, after his extended period of unemployment (this was Hollande’s France, after all). The old man finds him adequately adequate, but his nervous daughter Marie takes a liking to him. She clearly sees Jean as a potential ally in her quiet campaign to lead a more independent life. Of course, the obsessive daguerreotypist would not care to lose his best and really only model.

Stéphane is also not inclined to move from his spacious but ramshackle villa either, despite the lucrative offers made by the local council and Jean’s efforts to nudge him along (for a sizable commission). It seems his property is dead smack in the middle of a proposed “green works” boondoggle. It also might be haunted. Now and then, Kurosawa will show us hints of the uncanny, but he will maintain the ambiguity until very late in the third act.

In terms of its tone and approach to the supernatural Daguerrotype compares very directly with Olivier Assayas’s Personal Shopper. However, it lacks the breathlessly intense prologue of the Shopper, which really sets up the audience on pins and needles for the rest of the film. Instead, each door that mysteriously opens raises our hopes that he will finally get into it, only to find it is another tease.

Still, enormous credit is due to Olivier Gourmet who is absolutely riveting as the arrogant, guilt-ridden, and possibly delusional Stéphane. Frankly, one of the most frightening aspects of the film is watching him fall into an ambiguous mental state somewhere between sanity and madness. Tahar Rahim broods well enough as Jean, but Constance Rousseau’s remarkable portrait of Marie is achingly fragile and somewhat off. As usual, it is also fun to watch Mathieu Amalric do his thing in a small but colorful role as Stéphane’s sleazy agent.

This is Kurosawa’s first film with a Euro crew, but he certainly can’t complain about the tech contributions. Alexis Kavyrchine softly-lit cinematography is appropriately eerie, while Casa Stéphane is quite a feat of mise-en-scene. However, the truly ghostly life-size daguerreotypes are absolutely indispensable for the film’s look, tone, and overall effect. So, yes, a picture is worth a bunch of words. Good, but not the masterwork we’re all hoping for, Kurosawa’s Daguerrotype is still very much worth seeing when it has its New York premiere tomorrow (7/18) at the Japan Society, as part of this year’s Japan Cuts.

NYAFF ’16: Creepy

Cops and serial killers have trouble retiring. At least, Det. Koichi Takakura gives it a try. However, the freshly appointed criminology professor is soon investigating an unsolved family disappearance as part of his academic research. Of course, this case will hit close to home, as they often do in serial killer movies. So it goes when Kiyoshi Kurosawa returns to his macabre roots with Creepy (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 New York Asian Film Festival.

The Honda family disappearance is still somewhat notorious in this sleepy suburban district. For some reason, the mother, father and son up and vanished, leaving behind the daughter Saki while she was away on a class trip. Her memories of that time are rather confused when Takakura interviews her, but she seems to think her missing family members often made calls to a shadowy stranger.

Meanwhile, the Takakuras struggle to adapt to suburban life. The next door neighbor Nishino is particularly baffling. One day he is rude and hostile. The next day he is eager to make nice. Takakura is inclined to give him a wide berth, particularly when his daughter Mio claims he is not really her father, but he somehow seems to make inroads charming his wife Yasuko. Eventually, these two strands will intersect, because the narrative would be an ungainly mess if they didn’t.

Even though we can see the general direction Creepy is headed, the first two acts are eerie as heck. Nobody does ominous atmospherics and evil foreshadowing better than Kurosawa. Unfortunately, the final twenty minutes or so play out more-or-less by-the-numbers. Still, even though Kurosawa stops springing surprises, he has us sufficiently invested to see it through.

Hidetoshi Nishijima (who memorably got the snot beat out of him in Amir Naderi’s Cut) broods like a king as the possibly too-intense Takakura. Yet, somehow Teruyuki Kagawa manages to consistently up-stage him and everyone else as Nishino, who lives up to Kurosawa’s title and then some. Ryoko Fujino manages to be almost as unsettling, yet also disturbingly vulnerable as Mio. Max the Takakuras’ dog is cool too—and he has a significant, but not corny role to play.

It is good to see Kurosawa come back to the dark side, even though Journey to the Shore and REAL are both beautifully poignant films. There is more than enough of his master touch in Creepy to please his admirers and general fans of the serial killer genre. Recommended rather enthusiastically, Creepy screens this Wednesday (6/29) at the Walter Reade, as part of this year’s NYAFF.

NYFF ’15: Journey to the Shore

Mizuki and Yusuke never actually use the “g” word. It carries too much baggage. After all, Yusuke still has physical form. He can walk around during daylight hours and be seen by others. It just so happens that Yusuke drowned three years ago. However, there are still rules to his current state of being, but Mizuki will accept them as best she can, to reacquaint herself with her dead husband in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Journey to the Shore (clip here), which screens during the 53^rd New York Film Festival.

Since Yusuke’s body was never recovered, Mizuki never had the closure she needs. However, when Yusuke suddenly appears, she sees it as an opportunity to renew their relationship. In a situation like that, you might as well be optimistic. Rather than fall into their old rut, Yusuke convinces her to take a road trip with him, visiting all the good decent people with whom he spent considerable time as he worked his way back to Tokyo from the coastal scene of his demise.

Most of them will be living, but some are also spirits, like Shimakage, the provincial newspaper distributor, whose persistent guilt for mistreating his wife keeps him tethered to the terrestrial world. It is all very instructive for Mikuzi, especially when she learns Yusuke worked as a cook in the traditional take-out restaurant owned by the very much alive Jinnai and Fujie. Yet, the latter is also profoundly haunted by mistakes from the past. Unfortunately, as they travel on, Mikuzi will start to understand their extra time together is probably not sustainable when she meets a similar couple suffering from supernaturally and stress-induced forms of mental instability.

Journey is an achingly delicate, profoundly humanistic film that will choke you up several times over. It is all about forgiveness and acceptance, fully understanding there are no easy answers in life (or death). It is doomed to be compared to Kore-eda’s Afterlife, but with good reason. Both present an unfussy vision of the afterlife limbo, finding acutely human drama in such a metaphysically significant situation. They are both just great films that renew our faith in cinema without resorting to any special effects or gimmickry.

Although, strictly speaking, she is the one being haunted, Eri Fukatsu is absolutely haunting as Mizuki. It is a performance of quiet power and maturity, the likes of which we rarely see. She also develops believably complex and ambiguous chemistry with Tadanobu Asano’s Yusuke. However, her most emotionally devastating scene probably comes opposite Nozomi Muraoka as the guilt-ridden Fujie. (It is so overwhelming in its simplicity and honesty, it almost unbalances the narrative flow.)

Journey is a spiritually and psychologically intelligent film, featuring a terrific lead performance from Fukatsu and scores of accomplished supporting turns. Kurosawa never sets out to dazzle, but there are numerous scenes that sear themselves into memory. You could say it lives up to the unfulfilled promise of the disappointing screen adaptation of Matheson’s What Dreams May Come. Very highly recommended, Journey to the Shore screens Tuesday (9/29) at Alice Tully Hall and Thursday (10/1) at the Gilman Theater, as a Main Slate selection of the 2015 NYFF.

NYAFF ’14: Two by Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Romantic clichés require two to tango, but that is usually not a problem in the movies. Instead, rom-com tropes are dashed upon the rocks of genre cinema in a new long short and a short feature by Japanese J-horror auteur turned art-house favorite, Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Sure to have a long shelf life on the international festival circuit, Kurosawa’s Beautiful New Bay Area Project (trailer here) and Seventh Code (trailer here) played as a double bill during the 2014 New York Asian Film Festival.

Prepare yourself for a look at the seedy side of urban redevelopment in Bay Area (originally conceived as part of a themed anthology). Amano’s family has always ruled the Yokohama port and continues to do so, even though he is a mere wastrel figure-head president of the family development business. They have ambitious plans to turn transform the waterfront, but he is more interested Takako, a beautiful laborer. Evidently, he has dreamed of her, but this means nothing to her.

Frankly, it is not exactly clear who or what she is, but she takes her work as a longshoreman and her father’s name very seriously. Enraged by her rejection, Amano steals her ID tile and instructs security to forcibly remove her should she come to reclaim it. That she does—far stronger than anyone expects.

In all honesty, the story of Bay Area does not make much sense and it looks like it was filmed with the cheapest digital camera available at Wal-Mart (not to mention grossly violating the principle of Chekhov’s gun, or rather Chekhov’s norovirus), but it is an awful lot of fun when Takako starts taking care of business. Kurosawa considers this his twenty-nine minute foray into action filmmaking and he duly delivers a series of fan pleasing fight sequences. Tasuku Emoto might not be much as Amano, but Mao Mita is likely to a lot of NYAFF patrons’ new movie crush as the lovely and steely Takako.

At first blush, Akiko seems to have little in common with Takako. She is the ostensibly innocent protagonist of the hour-long Seventh Code, who has followed the mysterious Matsunaga to Vladivostok, because she was deeply taken with him during a chance meeting in Japan. Hardly knowing her, Matsunaga encourages her to return home, but when she persists, his dodgy Russian associates steal her luggage and passport, leaving her in the middle of nowhere.

However, it will take more than that to get Akiko to give up. Eventually, she will find limited work and friendship with an expatriate Japanese restauranteur and his Chinese girlfriend, Hsiao-yen, while continuing her search for Matsunaga. Yet, now and then, Kurosawa drops hints there might be more to this story than meets the eye.

In contrast to Bay Area, Code looks fantastic. Kurosawa effectively takes viewers on a walking tour of Vladivostok’s back alleys, giving the audience a vivid rough-and-tumble sense of place. He also stages another first-rate fight scene and maintains a general vibe of weirdness. While the big surprise might be easy to anticipate, Japanese pop star Atsuko Maeda turns it quite agilely as Akiko. It is a nice acting debut vehicle for her, even though Chinese television host Aissy steals a number of scenes outright as the ambiguously ambitious Hsiao-yen. Unfortunately, Kurosawa has a hard time wrapping-up Code, tacking on a number of false endings and a completely random performance from Maeda, perhaps intended to satisfy her fans.

While both films are a bit of a mixed bag, they are brimming with energy and spectacularly showcase the talents of Mita, Maeda, and Aissy. They fit well together, but represent another curve ball for cineastes familiar either with his previous genre work, like Pulse, or his more sensitive recent releases, such as REAL or Tokyo Sonata. Recommended for fans of action and espionage films with resourceful leading ladies, Beautiful New Bay Area Project and Seventh Code screened this week at NYAFF, so expect them to pop up at more fests shortly.

NYFF ’13: Real

Overlooked in the only Jurassic Park that matters, the pleisiosaur finally gets its big screen close-up, courtesy of the other Kurosawa.  Initially, it is only a metaphor, but it becomes significantly meaningful and pressing to the young lovers in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Real (trailer here), which screens tonight at the 51^st New York Film Festival.

Initially, Koichi Fujita and Atsumi Kazu look like the ideal couple.  Kazu seems perfectly sweet, but the comic artist specializes in grisly serial killer mangas.  Unfortunately, while suffering a persistent case of writers block, Kazu tried to take her own life, falling into a coma instead.  Hoping to assist her recovery, Fujita has agreed to a new procedure known as “sensing,” by which he will enter her subconscious. 

If Fujita gently probes the circumstances surrounding her attempted suicide, he can encourage her conscious mind to re-awaken.  The early sessions go relatively well, but Fujita is increasingly alarmed by the residual phantom images intruding on his reality as a result of the sensing.  He also carries back a concrete mission to perform in the real world.  Kazu yearns to see the pleisiosaur drawing she gave him while they were both children living on the provincial island of Hikone.

As Kurosawa’s title suggests, there will be many questions about the nature of reality throughout Real.  However, every twist and revelation serves to advance the story (adapted from Rokuro Inui’s novel), so they never feel cheap or forced.  While perhaps less of a departure for the horror auteur than his previous outing, the dark family drama Tokyo Sonata, Real is best considered in the tradition of Richard Matheson writing in his What Dreams May Come and Somewhere in Time bag.  In fact, what is most striking about Real is how deeply Fujita and Kazu feel about each other while being so reserved in the manner they express it.

Frankly, Takeru Sato’s work could be uncharitably categorized as a bit stiff or awkward, but to be fair, Fujita is supposed to be a step slow in the intuition department.  On the other hand, Haruka Ayase’s performance as Kazu is acutely sensitive.  In fact, she handles her game-changing pivot with considerable grace.  It is also a bit surprising to see a major star like Miki Nakatani (truly mesmerizing in Memories of Matsuko) in the comparatively straight forward supporting role of Dr. Eiko Aihara, but she makes the most of it.

Real is a text book example of how special effects can and should be subservient to story and character development.  There is plenty of head-tripping and reality-bending, but it is the love story drives the film.  Nicely supported by Kei Haneoka’s elegant musical themes, Real is far more accessible for general audiences than most of Kurosawa’s films.  Highly recommended, it screens tonight (10/7) at Alice Tully Hall as a main slate selection of the 2013 NYFF.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Tokyo Sonata

In the 1990’s Japan experienced something almost entirely unprecedented for post-war generations: economic stagnation. After missing out on the good times of the last decade, one of the world’s most productive, best educated work forces remain plagued with unemployment and underemployment. Such a fate befalls the protagonist of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Tokyo Sonata (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

The domestic drama of Sonata might seem like a distinct departure for Kurosawa (Kiyoshi), who made his international reputation as a leading J-horror and yakuza filmmaker. The harrowing disintegration of the Sasaki family unit will probably be oft likened to a horror story by critics, and the comparison is reasonably apt. As the film opens, Ryuhei Sasaki is a respected purchasing manager for a large corporation, but by the end of the day, he will be brusquely laid-off as his former position outsourced to China.

While the looming economic implications are hardly inconsequential, Sasaki’s greatest concern is his potential loss of authority as the head of his household. Hoping it will be a short-term subterfuge, Sasaki joins an invisible army of the unemployed who leave for work in the morning as if nothing were wrong, only to spend the day queuing in job centers and eating charity lunches.

The problem is Sasaki does not really fool anyone. They can sense something is wrong and could hazard a pretty fair guess as to what. As an arbitrary exercise of his failing power, Sasaki forbids his youngest son Kenji from pursuing the piano lessons he had been taking surreptitiously, using his lunch money. With the eldest son enlisting in the American military (permissible under a fictional change in law) and his wife Megumi increasingly embarrassed by his behavior, Sasaki’s family is already in endanger of fracturing irreparably Then a sudden act of insanity plunges them into a surreal dark night of the soul.

By and large though, the nightmares of Sonata will be only too real to audiences in these times of economic uncertainty—though perhaps accentuated in Japan by the country’s rigid social structure. Yet arguably, Sonata’s greatest tragedy is Sasaki’s denial of Kenji’s talent, considered that of a true prodigy by his teacher, Kaneko-san (played by the popular actress Haruka Igawa), the only encouraging presence in his life. For all the high drama and bitter angst he marshals, Kurosawa’s conclusion is perfectly understated—both a beautiful and absolutely damning display of Kenji’s sensitive virtuosity.

As Sasaki, Teruyuki Kagawa absolutely personifies pathetic alienation. He seems to be specializing in roles of quiet desperation, having recently appeared in Tokyo! as the Hikikomori shut-in, and as one of the pitiful fanboys in Kisaragi, seen during the Japan Society’s film festival. Truly, his precipitous decline is disturbing to watch. However, Kyoko Koizumi’s haunting performance as the dignified mother trying to hold her family together against a tide of mounting chaos is what ultimately defines Sonata.

Relentlessly naturalistic save for a dark detour into the bizarre, Sonata is a merciless film, but there is no denying its power. Uniformly well acted and sharply observed, it is a finely crafted work that should take on additional resonance for American audiences as domestic markets continue their historic free fall unimpeded. It opens this Friday in New York at the IFC Film Center and the Lincoln Plaza.