Cure (1997)

Director:

Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Writers:

Kiyoshi Kurosawa (novel)
Kiyoshi Kurosawa (screenplay)

Release Date:

8 July 2001 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Horror | Thriller

Tagline:

Madness. Terror. Murder.

Plot:

A wave of gruesome murders is sweeping Tokyo. The only connection is a bloody X carved into the neck of each of the victims...

Plot Keywords:

Murder | Tokyo Japan | Philosophy | Mystic | Psychological Drama

Awards:

9 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Kôji Yakusho	...	Kenichi Takabe
Masato Hagiwara	...	Kunio Mamiya
Tsuyoshi Ujiki	...	Makoto Sakuma
Anna Nakagawa	...	Fumie Takabe
Yoriko Douguchi	...	Dr. Akiko Miyajima
Yukijirô Hotaru	...	Ichiro Kuwano
Denden	...	Oida
Ren Ôsugi	...	Fujiwara
Masahiro Toda	...	Tôru Hanaoka
Misayo Haruki	...	Tomoko Hanaoka
Shun Nakayama	...	Kimura
Akira Otaka	...	Yasukawa
Shogo Suzuki	...	Tamura
Toshi Kato	...	Psychiatrist
Hajime Tanimoto	...	Takabe no shachô

Also Known As:

Cure (International: English title)
Kyua (Japan) (alternative title)
The Cure (UK)

Runtime:

111 min | Taiwan:115 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

France:-12 | South Korea:15 (DVD rating)

Company:

Code Red

Goofs:

Continuity: When the detective first goes to Mamiya's apartment, the landlord tells him he has not seen Mamiya for six months. Yet, when the detective enters the dark, long deserted apartment, the "lab" animals are still perfectly healthy. No explanation is offered as to how they survived with their owner gone for so long.

Movie Connections:

References The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

unsettling

In the wake of the sarin-gas attack mounted by the Aum Shinrikyo cult on the Tokyo subway system in 1995, horror films enjoyed a sudden spurt of popularity in Japan. Many of the films focus on hypnosis or media-induced violence, the fragile normalcy of modern life, and grisly deeds committed by seemingly ordinary citizens. This unnerving 1997 thriller, which seems like a direct response to the Aum Shinrikyo incident, offers a glimpse of how our own national cinema may absorb the blow of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. A rash of senseless murders wracks Tokyo; the victims have deep X-shaped gashes across their throats, and the killers (often their loved ones) are found in a daze. The only connection appears to be a mysterious drifter (Masato Hagiwara) who gets into random strangers' heads with a single, oft-repeated question: "Who are you?" What makes this subtle, quiet shocker so unsettling is the idea that everyone has secret resentments that render him or her hypnotically pliable--that everyone harbors some glimmer of murderous rage that can be exploited, whether by a drifter or by religious extremists. The writer-director, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, a prolific Japanese filmmaker who's developing a large cult following here, heightens the unease with buzzing soundtrack noise and eerie long takes that leave us consistently unprepared for the violence to come. And the last sequence will leave people arguing--it requires close attention, culminating in an ending even more disturbing in its implications than the conclusion of SEVEN.