Four by Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Spacy’s Four By series is a new monthly program dedicated to bringing access to four films of a selected filmmaker, whose work, though revered, often goes unseen. Bijan Zadeh and Liam McCoy continue the series this November with a showcase of the work of Japanese director, Kiyoshi Kurosawa.

Regarded as a “Master of Horror” after the acclaim of his most popular works such as Cure (1997) and Pulse (2001), Kurosawa’s large and diverse oeuvre offers much more than the limited scope of the genre he’s most associated with (though terror is often lurking in the background of many of his films.) In his own words, “The next thing I want to do is something I have never done,” and indeed, that sentiment is reflected throughout his entire career. However, whether it be an end-of-the-millennium Indiana Jones-inspired thriller, a ghost-story meets romantic melodrama, or a slacker hangout “comedy”, Kurosawa’s films share many similarities, often reflecting a society in decay, lonely individuals, young and old, longing for a connection with the rest of the world, a past (ghosts) that we have to learn to live with in the present, an apocalypse on the horizon, and the possibility of — a hope for — a brighter future for all of us.

Charisma (1999) is the screenplay that won Kiyoshi Kurosawa a scholarship to the Sundance Institute almost ten years prior, while both Tokyo Sonata (2008) and Journey to the Shore (2015) won the “Un Certain Regard” Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival their respective years. At age 69, Kurosawa remains dexterous as ever, having released three films in 2024; the horror short Chime, a French remake of his 1998 V-Cinema classic Serpent’s Path, and the action thriller Cloud.