Kiyoshi Kurosawa Capsule Reviews

Cure (1997) — May 10, 2016

“Psychiatry is a pseudoscience.” — Tom Cruise

Added September 8, 2025:

Hypnotic. Mesmerizing. Captivating. Etc.

Pulse (2001) — May 10, 2016

Remember when the internet was so new and mysterious we thought it might plausibly contain demons? Now we know it’s just full of assholes.

Double feature this with The Midnight After.

Added September 22, 2025:

MIT employee: oh hey you’re back early
Tim Berners-Lee: internet’s haunted
MIT employee: what?
Tim Berners-Lee: *loading a pistol and turning on the laptop* internet’s haunted.

Bright Future (2002) – September 15, 2025

Never really thought of Kurosawa and Jarmusch together, but in retrospect it makes a lot of sense. A low-key hangout vibe belying something unexplainable, disaffected, and sinister in the world.

Tokyo Sonata (2008) — May 12, 2016

Your soul is like a landscape fantasy,
Where masks and Bergamasks, in charming wise,
Strum lutes and dance, just a bit sad to be
Hidden beneath their fanciful disguise.

Singing in minor mode of life’s largesse
And all-victorious love, they yet seem quite
Reluctant to believe their happiness,
And their song mingles with the pale moonlight,

The calm, pale moonlight, whose sad beauty, beaming,
Sets the birds softly dreaming in the trees,
And makes the marbled fountains, gushing, streaming —
Slender jet-fountains — sob their ecstasies.

Seventh Code (2013) – September, 16, 2025

Getting Jarmusch vibes from this one too, as I did with Bright Future, at least until that incredible cascade of endings.

Maeda Atsuko needs to just say no whenever Kurosawa asks her to travel to the former Soviet Union.

Creepy (2016) — June 11, 2016

Never get out of the boat.

Added September 23, 2025:

You might think that it's a wild coincidence that a former cop/criminal psychologist just happens to move next door to a serial killer after leaving the city for the suburbs, but having lived in the suburbs for most of my life, I can tell you it's the second most probable thing in this movie (the first being that the cops are utter buffoons).

To the Ends of the Earth (2019) — December 12, 2020

Out of fish, water.

Wife of a Spy (2020) — April 24, 2021

The Woman Who Knew Too Much.

Chime (2024) – August 31, 2024

Teaching can be like that sometimes though. 
That’s too many cans, imo.