Cure (film)

is a 1997 Japanese neo-noir psychological horror film
written and directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, starring Kōji Yakusho, Masato Hagiwara, Tsuyoshi Ujiki, Anna Nakagawa, Yoriko Dōguchi and Yukijirō Hotaru. The story follows a detective investigating a string of gruesome murders where an X is carved into the neck of each victim, and the murderer is found near the victim of each case and remembers the crime but does not know why they did it. The film is Kurosawa and Yakusho's first collaboration.

Originally entitled , the film's name was changed due to the Tokyo subway sarin attack perpetrated by Aum Shinrikyo that happened while the film was in production. To avoid suggesting a religious cult connection to the crimes in the story, it was retitled ''Cure'' at the suggestion of a Daiei Film producer.

The film was released by Shochiku-Fuji Company on December 27, 1997. It received widespread positive reviews from critics, and is considered a progenitor of the explosion of Japanese horror media in the late 1990s and early 2000s, preceding other releases like Hideo Nakata's ''Ring'' and Takashi Shimizu's ''Ju-On''.

Plot

Kenichi Takabe, a Tokyo Metropolitan Police detective, is involved in the investigation of a bizarre series of violent killings by seemingly random perpetrators. In each case the murderers have been caught close to the scene of the crime. Each one has mutilated his or her victim by carving a large "X" into the neck or chest of the deceased. Although all of the perpetrators readily confess and remember their deeds, none seems to have substantial motives or explanations for their actions. Takabe is at a loss for answers. His private life also seems to falter, as his wife Fumie suffers from phases of schizophrenia and frequently gets lost in the neighborhood.

Takabe, together with his friend and colleague, forensic psychologist Shin Sakuma, eventually identifies a common thread connecting the murders. Each killer, shortly before killing, came in contact with a man named Kunio Mamiya. Mamiya appears to have extreme short-term memory loss and claims to recall nothing of his past. In custody, Mamiya constantly evades Takabe's questions by asking about the detective's identity and private life. Sakuma has Mamiya transferred to prison care ward. The pressure of the unsolved cases and his wife's deteriorating condition take a toll on Takabe, causing him to lose his composure. At one point during the questioning, he expresses resentment towards Fumie in front of an amused Mamiya.

Searching through Mamiya's belongings, Takabe and Sakuma discover that Mamiya used to study psychology, specifically mesmerism and hypnosis. Takabe suspects that Mamiya has no memory problems at all and is in fact a master of hypnosis capable of planting homicidal suggestions in strangers' minds by exposing them to repetitive sounds, such as the motion of water or the flame of a lighter. Takabe has Mamiya charged with incitement to murder. After experiencing a vision of Fumie's suicide, he commits her to a mental hospital.

Sakuma shows Takabe a videotape featuring a mysterious man speculated to be Suejiro Bakuro, the originator of Japanese mesmerism in Mamiya's mesmerism literature. In the video, a female subject was hypnotized by the man, who gestured an "X" in midair. The woman later killed her son in a manner similar to the crimes they are investigating. Sakuma believes the crimes have a connection to the past, and describes Mamiya as a missionary of ceremonial murders. Subsequently, Sakuma unconsciously draws an X in black paint on his wall and starts to experience hallucinations of Takabe menacingly cornering him. Several days later, the police discover Sakuma's body handcuffed to a pipe in his home and conclude that he committed suicide.

Mamiya escapes from prison, killing a policeman in the process. Takabe tracks him to a deserted building and shoots him. Before dying, Mamiya draws an X in the air in front of Takabe. Exploring the building, Takabe finds and plays an old phonograph cylinder containing a recording of a male voice, thought to be that of Bakuro, repeating what seem to be hypnotic instructions. Shortly after, Fumie's already decomposed corpse is found by a nurse, with an "X" savagely carved into her throat.

In a restaurant, a waitress serves Takabe, walks away, is whispered to by several staff members, and silently draws a knife.

Cast

Release

''Cure'' was shown theatrically in Japan on December 27, 1997, by Shochiku subsidiary Shochiku-Fuji Company, which was known for distributing many western movies, such as The Last Emperor, Thelma and Louise and Tom and Jerry: The Movie. The film was shown in the United States at the San Francisco International Film Festival on April 25, 1998. It was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in 1999 as part of a career retrospective on Kurosawa. The film received a theatrical release in the United States by Cowboy Booking in 2001.

The film was released on home video for the first time in the UK as part of The Masters of Cinema Series on April 23, 2018. The Criterion Collection released the film on Blu-ray in the United States on October 18, 2022.

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, ''Cure'' has a 94% approval rating based on 63 reviews, with an average score of 7.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Mesmerizing and psychologically intriguing."

Tom Mes of ''Midnight Eye'' described the film as "a horror film in the purest sense of the word". Meanwhile, A. O. Scott of ''The New York Times'' noted that Kiyoshi Kurosawa "turns the thriller into a vehicle for gloomy social criticism." Scott Tobias of ''The A.V. Club'' said: "Kurosawa, a prolific genre stylist who specializes in low-key thrillers and horror films, undercuts the lurid material by keeping a chilly, almost clinical distance from the events and unfolding the story in elliptical pieces." For ''Screen Slate'', Stephanie Monohan wrote: "Arguably overshadowed by other films in the turn-of-the-century J-Horror canon like '' Ringu'' (1998) and ''Audition'' (1999), ''Cure'' lives on as one of the more powerful works of the era."

Kurosawa, speaking about the success of ''Cure'', stated: "I watched a lot of American horror movies growing up, and I had wanted to make a movie in that genre for some years. Then the growth in popularity of genre films made it easier for me to get the project financed and produced. So, the circumstance was the key factor to the success of ''Cure'', and it has continued to play an important role in my career ever since."

In 2012, South Korean film director Bong Joon-ho listed the film as one of the greatest of all time.

References

Footnotes

Sources

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External links

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{{Yokohama Film Festival Best Film

1997 films
1997 crime thriller films
1997 horror films
1990s Japanese-language films
1997 psychological thriller films
Japanese horror films
Japanese crime thriller films
Existentialist films
Films directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Japanese neo-noir films
Police detective films
Japanese serial killer films
Japanese police films
1990s Japanese films
Japanese psychological thriller films
Japanese psychological horror films
Japanese horror thriller films
Crime horror films
Films about hypnosis
Films about amnesia
Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department in fiction