Review of Cure (1997) by Zachary S — 15 Apr 2007

I adore Kiyoshi Kurosawa's style. I genuinely love it. I just wish he was better with the substance.

Let's be honest with ourselves - none of KK's movies are really that deep or thoughtful, except probably Pulse. They don't really deserve multiple viewings. They are neat little baubles that show off a masterful, mature sense of style and some fantastic performances. If there's one quality Kurosawa has, it's that he can draw A-class performances from any actor in any of his movies. But with all that aside, he can't write for shit. His body of work explores a lot of gripping themes, but consistently fails to expound on all of them. The more he gets out of these ideas, the better his movies are.

Doppelganger, Cure, Seance, Pulse. From worst to best, that's how his films stack up. (I haven't seen Bright Future or Charisma, and I hear that his J-pop-horror brainchild Loft is downright awful.) Pulse did such a great job tying its messages into its atmosphere and style; Seance was enormously involving, if not a little dry. Cure left me cold and Doppelganger was straight-out dull and repetitive. I'm sorry, but three-minute long shots of people walking through a house with no dialogue or exposition isn't productive film making, as cool as the shot may look. And in Kurosawa tradition, Cure's non-ending is dissatisfying, frustrating and cryptic.

If you're a fan of Kiyoshi Kurosawa like I am, this is imperative viewing, but it's not a very good movie on many other fronts.