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.

On the other hand, Mathieu Amalric and Slimane Dazi are spectacularly sleazy as Laval and “Christian,” the Circle’s former head of security. They also both help illustrate just how physically difficult it is to kidnap an able-bodied criminal and then hold them in chains for an extended period.

In some ways, Serpent’s Path[s] aptly compares to Sluizer’s Vanishings[s], because they have quite a chilling twist. Yet, even for first-time viewers, it is less likely to stun viewers today than in 1998, since we now have over 25 years Kurosawa films, as well as plenty of imitators. Regardless, the master steadfastly refuses to water-down his severe aesthetics for one second of the 2024 remake. Recommended for Kurosawa fans and patrons of gritty French (not quite New Extremity) thrillers, Serpent’s Path (2024) screens tomorrow (7/17) as part of Japan Cuts ’25.