#masato hagiwara

[marypickfords]

Cure (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1997)

[filmreveries]

“All the things that used to be inside of me... now they are all outside.”

Cure (1997) dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa

[shihlun]

Kiyoshi Kurosawa

- Cure

1997

[sensazioneultra]

You knew that from the start. So did I. You’re different from them. You’re someone... who can understand what I’m really saying.

CURE キュア (1997) dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa

[yakushells]

MASATO HAGIWARA as KAZUO TAKAYAMA MANY HAPPY RETURNS (1993) dir. Toshihiro Tenma

[cemyafilmarsiv]

Cure directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa

[sloshed-cinema]

Cure [キュア] (1997)

Takabe is in a sense the perfect noir detective. He’s hot-tempered, lashing out at in frustration at setbacks and reacting violently to a distant, cool suspect. His devotion to his job is almost all-consuming, a ploy to avoid his troubled home life and his conflicted, frustrated views on his mentally ill wife. And he’s brilliant, finding the perp of the opening crime in a small hallway compartment on an instinctive hunch. The one thing he lacks in that formula is a general distaste for humanity. That role is filled by his companion, the psychiatrist Sakuma. Crime is motiveless to him: why try to attribute reason to madness? Takabe must find an answer, and that zealous drive spurs him on to his doom.

The film matches Sakuma’s worldview in its handling of the evils visited by the mesmeric killings as supremely banal. People leap from rooftops or through windows, shoot their colleagues, obsessively study tapes, all in indifferent wide shots that offer no overt suspense or intrigue. Much like the perpetrators’ claims, this is all calm and ordinary. Similarly, Mamiya is a vessel. He constantly asks questions, spinning a web of uncertainty before he lights his flame or uses water to mesmerize his victim. His existence is indifferent, everything inside of him without. All of Mamiya’s dialogue is the verbal equivalent of this arm’s length treatment of emotion and sense of self. Whenever the film cuts to a close shot of someone’s face, it’s too late.

This sort of intentionality permeates every layer of a film ironically going for subliminal suggestion, but it’s all the better for it. Quick edits which interrupt continuity render Mamiya as the master of reality here, able to move about the space free of how logic should dictate, and makes Takabe helpless despite his authority. Chillingly, the film is almost entirely devoid of score, again leaning into the pedestrian nature of evil presented here. Dulling of sound instead takes precedent: a fight breaks out in the precinct during Mamiya’s arraignment, and then all we can hear is their private dialogue. The sea is muted during Mamiya’s introduction. All that needs to be said is that music appears only during the opening killing and then again when Takabe escorts his wife to the asylum and during his last dinner.

THE RULES

SIP

Someone says 'Takabe'.

The X symbol appears somewhere.

Takabe turns off the washing machine in his home.

Quick, subliminal images flash onscreen.

BIG DRINK

Someone jumps out/off of a building.

A lighter is ignited.

The Bluebeard story is mentioned.

[da-vedere]

Cure (1997) ☰

[themadscene]

[alaturkanews]

Efe Teksoy Wrote, A Real Japanese Mafia 'Yakuza Story': "Tokyo Vice"

Efe Teksoy Wrote, A Real Japanese Mafia ‘Yakuza Story’: “Tokyo Vice”

A REAL JAPANESE MAFIA ‘YAKUZA’ STORY: “TOKYO VICE” Cinema Writer/Film Critic Efe TEKSOY; he wrote by giving an exemplifying the views of great thinkers, philosophers and classical writers, the “TOKYO VICE” series in the genre of crime, drama and thriller, for America’s Los Angeles based Internet Newspaper @alaturkaonline.   AN EXTRAORDINARY JOURNEY TO THE UNDERGROUND WORLD OF JAPAN HBO Max series…

[marypickfords]

Cure (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1997)

[stuff-diary]

Even If This Love Disappears from the World Tonight

Movies watched in 2024

Even If This Love Disappears from the World Tonight (2022, Japan)

Director: Takahiro Miki

Writers: Hana Matsumoto & Sho Tsukikawa (based on the novel by Misaki Ichijo)

Mini-review:

Takahiro Miki is so good at making these romance movies with tragic undertones. Sure, this one doesn't break any new ground, but it's still very enjoyable. And it's visually gorgeous, exactly as I expected from this director: the atmosphere in his films always feels like a warm hug. The two leads also do a pretty good job, and their chemistry is definitely great. That being said, Kotone Furukawa steals the movie in terms of acting, and I wish her character had been explored a bit more. Anyway, I'd definitely recommend Even If This Love Disappears from the World Tonight to any fan of Japanese romances with a tragic twist.

[twenty-words-or-less]

Cure (キュア)

Summary: A detective investigates a string of murders wherein the victim is found with a X carved into their throat and the killer remembers nothing about their crime.

A gritty slow burn of a film with nicely ambiguous ending and explanation that seems ridiculous but works here. Somehow.

Rating: 4/5

Photo credit: MUBI

[sensazioneultra]

Koji Yakusho as Kenichi Takabe and Masato Hagiwara as Kunio Mamiya

CURE  キュア  (1997) dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa

[randomrichards]

CURE:

X marks the murder

Amnesiac behind this?

Detective at loss

[cemyafilmarsiv]

Cure directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa