Harockerce What a beautiful movie!

Marketic It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Sean Wilson Wow. This was my first Kiyoshi Kurosawa film, and what an incredible experience it was. This is art at its finest. It's been over seven hours since I watched it and as I am writing this, my heart still palpitates when recalling the mesmerising images and scenes from the film. 'Cure' is a film that blends multiple genres into a unique cinematic experience akin to the films of Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch, Alfred Hitchcock and Andrei Tarkovsky. In fact, I'd put Kiyoshi Kurosawa up there as one of the greatest filmmakers in world cinema.Koji Yakusho plays a detective investigating a series of bizarre murders across Tokyo in a superb and emotional performance. Masato Hagiwara delivers an absolutely chilling performance as the mysterious Mamiya. Kurosawa's camera work allows the viewer to witness the subtle changes in Mamya's body language and the results are absolutely terrifying. It's his eyes: cold, lifeless and sinister.The story itself comes from an intelligent script written by Kurosawa, combining a crime mystery with film noir, horror, psychology, philosophy and social criticism. The atmosphere can only be described as a unique mix of Lynchian terror, Hitchcockian suspense and Tarkovskian or Kubrickian ambiguity. The music itself consists of ominous ambient soundscapes and rumbling drones which is a great deviation from orchestral scores.Each scene, each shot is so well filmed. The camera work is pretty much perfect. Kurosawa's direction is absolutely masterful, delivering beautifully shot long takes, some lasting more than five minutes, to allow the viewer to soak in the atmosphere he has created on screen. Kurosawa clearly has an eye for the camera and each scene is so well shot and edited, evoking a kind of dark beauty to the screen.This is not strictly a horror film. David Lynch is known for incorporating elements of horror in his works, but isn't strictly a horror director. Kiyoshi Kurosawa should be considered the same. There is horror, but this horror isn't overt; it is subtle and intelligent. I've heard the average movie goer say that Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining' wasn't scary, simply because they were expecting jumps, gore and other cheap tactics to scare the audience. Little did they realise was that Kubrick was making a deep, cerebral psychological story. So if you like your films cerebral, ambiguous, deep and different, then 'Cure' is highly recommended. It will likely stay with you long after the end credits.

MarieGabrielle Detective Takabe (Koji Yakusho) is called upon to solve a group of inexplicable murders.The sights and sounds of this film encompass an odd sense of foreboding and despair. I watched this DVD four separate times as it had such an effect, as did several of the performances.Takabe is saddled with the additional burden of a wife with emotional problems, she has an amnesia of sorts and also is at times depressed. We see his frustration as he comes home from a long days work merely hoping to engage in conversation with her.There is a young man roaming the city who is eventually hospitalized, who incites various people to act out, or kill in a ritualistic fashion. It comes to bear that Mahimi was at one time a medical student studying the occult and hypnotism as taught by Austrian "occultist" Anton Mesmer ("Mesmerism").In Japan it is revealed this technique was called "soul conjuring" and suppressed by the Meiji Government during the late 1800's. The events unravel in a domino effect, taking you into a bizarre scenario.Overall this is an excellent film with good performances, do not mind the subtitles. I will be looking for other films by this director as well. Excellent suspense here, in American film we do not have similar, except maybe for Hitchcock. 10/10.

ebossert Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa perfects the concept of hypnotic villainy in this film, which features a battle of wills between a detective and a genius who uses the power of suggestion to set in motion a series of killings throughout a city. Showcasing innovative suspense sequences, plot twists, and rich psychological/philosophical concepts, this film will have viewers pondering well after it ends. Kiyoshi again manages to elude the pitfalls of popular cinema to contribute not only a chilling masterpiece, but arguably one of the most awesome villains to ever grace the big screen.Of the thousands of films I've seen, few have floored me to the point where I've wanted to grant them the honor of being the "Best Movie Ever." The only other film that comes to mind is "A Tale of Two Sisters" (2003), which is easily the most impressive motion picture of all time. Since that distinction is taken, that leaves "Cure" (1997) with the runner-up spot in terms of world cinema, but the medal for "Best Japanese Movie Ever" is still for the taking. This film takes it. I've seen 1,328 films from that country, and I can tell you that even Yasujiro Ozu and Shinya Tsukamoto have failed to match the brilliance of "Cure." This is quite possibly the most engaging slow-paced film in existence. The tempo moves slower than molasses in January, but the introduction of the lead antagonist a mere 8 minutes into the film sets the seemingly endless array of intriguing moments into motion from the get go. Masato Hagiwara's character of Kunio Mamiya is spellbinding with his hypnotic technique that starts off with seemingly trivial dialogue but slowly progresses into an ingenious psychological trap. This provides for a number of memorable moments, my favorite of which is the mesmerizing water enchantment of the hospital nurse. In addition, the identity of this character is expertly crafted as a sort of ambiguous soul/personality whose essence is only truly revealed during the very last frame. No other film has created an antagonist so uniformly dangerous, sublime, and interesting as Kunio Mamiya.Kiyoshi Kurosawa is easily one of the top five directors of all time. This guy made three perfect films that no one talks about – "Cure" (1997), "Kairo" (2001), and "Charisma" (1999). What's really interesting is that he follows a rather unique art-house style that's almost never applied to the horror/thriller genres. Kiyoshi uses long shots, deliberate pacing, and ambiguity in moderation, which is unlike most art-house directors who have no sense of discretion. Despite the mindless ramblings of mainstream cinemaphiles, Kiyoshi rarely (if ever) indulges in pompous, self-congratulatory filming techniques because his choice of lean running times (under two hours in almost every instance) helps him to avoid the bloated, masturbatory pretentiousness that rears its ugly head in other art-house style films. Think Andrei Tarkovsky with more interesting and refined philosophical content and you'll have an idea of just how special Kiyoshi Kurosawa is as a director.Whenever possible, I like to point out the high content levels of Kiyoshi's films in an attempt to counter the nonsensical claims of some who feel that he practices a form of style over substance. Take the seemingly trivial dialogue that the Kunio Mimiya character engages in during his hypnotic acts of terrorism. The exchanges are an odd mix on a superficial level, but one comes to realize their importance when the victims are subjected to police interrogation. Only then does the viewer understand why Kunio fakes his amnesia (an attempt to elude his victims memories) and engages in circular question-begging. Also note the attention to details in other situations. Within the final 20 minutes we see Koji Yakusho in a quaint diner, but only upon further inspection do we realize that in one case his plate is filled with leftover food while in the other case it's licked clean, an important revelation of his essential change in character for the finale. And how about that final shot? This is just awesome cinema people. Magnificent.In retrospect, "Cure" was the true beginning of the Japanese horror phenomenon that has followed it's release. While lacking in industry influence that has helped to establish Japanese horror in general (that nod goes to Nakata's "Ringu" of 1998), it provides a ground zero date for the turning of the tide so to speak. For all intents and purposes, Japanese horror has kicked everyone else's backside from 1997 onward. That said, I am truly unhappy that Kiyoshi chose to leave the genre for more dramatic fare because we're already inundated with enough art-house dramas to keep us busy. How many expertly crafted art-house horror films are there floating around today? Whatever the number, it's not nearly enough.It's really too bad that good taste in film is practically extinct, because "Cure" should be one of those movies that everyone under the sun raves about until they're blue in the face. Kiyoshi isn't blessed with the lunatic fan base that follows guys like Akira Kurosawa or Andrei Tarkovsky. (Maybe I count as the first big fan of Kiyoshi.) It's a shame that he has established himself as an upper echelon filmmaker but somehow hasn't won over the majority of paid critics and film snobs who so easily drive the "emperor with no clothes" tide to coerce and guilt people into riding the bandwagons of lesser filmmakers.In any case, "Cure" is the pinnacle of exceptional film-making. It's also Kiyoshi Kurosawa's best film, and that's saying something.

movedout With a much more divided critical base than his much revered namesake, Kurosawa either draws ire or much respect for his genre twisting mindscrews of Asian cinema. I stand somewhere in between because even while I recognise and applaud his intentions and sheer nerve in bending the genre to the extent of esoterica, there's just something hollow left behind. With "Cure", he adds to an oeuvre of stringently erudite horror/thriller by quite obviously referencing the 1995 Sarin gas attack on Tokyo's subway system.He dithers around the subject of cults and finds that searching for identity in a (dys)functional society a much more clamant aspect of a person's descent into GroupThink and susceptibility of persuasion. Deliberately coy and abstract, Kurosawa is an auteur of surrealism and builds an intriguing cross between David Fincher and David Lynch while questioning our buried impulses and slowly pulling back the layers of detachment in a country that's gradually supplanting it's own identity with nothing of note.Arguing that the diegetic murders are related in more ways than a mysterious amnesiac and a curious X carved in the victims' neck, Kurosawa links the cause to the alienation from our contemporary lifelessness by way of allegory. With no discernible soundtrack aside from the electronic droning, ambiance and permutations of desperation in the lone protagonist's voice, Kurosawa demands attention through arduousness in minimalism but relents a caveat before long in its subtle ambiguity.Rating: 3½ out of 5