Cure (film)

This article is about the 1997 film. For other uses, see Cure (disambiguation).

1997 Japanese film

Cure

Theatrical release poster

Directed by| Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Written by| Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Produced by| Junyuki Shimoba
Tsutomu Tsuchikawa
Starring|

* Kōji Yakusho
* Masato Hagiwara
* Tsuyoshi Ujiki
* Anna Nakagawa
* Yoriko Dōguchi
* Yukijirō Hotaru

Cinematography| Tokushô Kikumura
Edited by| Kan Suzuki
Music by| Gary Ashiya

Production
company

Daiei Film

Distributed by| Shochiku-Fuji Company

Release date

* 27 December 1997 (1997-12-27) (Japan)

Running time

| 112 minutes
Country| Japan
Language| Japanese
Budget| est. $1,000,000 (JPY)

Cure (キュア, Kyua) 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.[1]

Originally entitled Evangelist (伝道師, Dendoushi), 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.[2][3]

The film was released by Shochiku-Fuji Company on December 27, 1997. It received widespread positive reviews from critics,[4] 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.[5]

## Plot

[edit]

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 or sights, 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 is hypnotized by the man, who gestures an "X" in midair. This 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 inciting others to commit 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

[edit]

* Kōji Yakusho as Kenichi Takabe
* Masato Hagiwara as Kunihiko Mamiya
* Tsuyoshi Ujiki as Shin Sakuma
* Anna Nakagawa as Fumie Takabe, Kenichi's wife
* Yoriko Dōguchi as Dr. Akiko Miyajima
* Yukijirō Hotaru as Ichiro Kuwano
* Denden as Oida
* Ren Osugi as Fujiwara
* Masahiro Toda as Tōru Hanaoka
* Misayo Haruki as Tomoko Hanaoka
* Shun Nakayam as Kimura
* Akira Otaka as Yasukawa
* Shôgo Suzuki as Tamura
* Touji Kawahigashi as Psychiatrist
* Hajime Tanimoto as Police Supervisor

## Release

[edit]

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.[6] The film was shown in the United States at the San Francisco International Film Festival on April 25, 1998.[7] It was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in 1999 as part of a career retrospective on Kurosawa.[8][9] The film received a theatrical release in the United States by Cowboy Booking in 2001.[10][9]

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.[11] The Criterion Collection released the film on Blu-ray in the United States on October 18, 2022.[12]

## Reception

[edit]

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."[4] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 70 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[13]

Tom Mes of Midnight Eye described the film as "a horror film in the purest sense of the word".[14] Meanwhile, A. O. Scott of The New York Times noted that Kiyoshi Kurosawa "turns the thriller into a vehicle for gloomy social criticism."[15] 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."[16] 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."[17]

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."[18]

In 2012, South Korean film director Bong Joon-ho listed the film as one of the greatest of all time.[19]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "Kurosawa, Yakusho Discuss the Monsters Within Us [Cure: Q&A]". Tokyo International Film Festival. October 28, 2018. Retrieved April 29, 2020.
2. ^ Yamazaki, Nobuko (October 27, 2018). "役所広司の魅力を『CURE』の黒沢清監督が語る「未知の領域を作り出すスター」" ["CURE" director Kiyoshi Kurosawa talks about Koji Yakusho's charm as "a star who creates unknown territory"]. Movie Walker Press (in Japanese).
3. ^ 役所広司、黒沢 清監督『CURE キュア』Q&A｜CURE - Q&A ["CURE" Q&A directed by Koji Yakusho and Kiyoshi Kurosawa] (in Japanese). Tokyo International Film Festival. October 29, 2018.
4. ^ a b "Cure (1998)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved July 21, 2019.
5. ^ "Cure (1997) – Kiyoshi Kurosawa's daring psychological thriller". South China Morning Post. December 2, 2017. Archived from the original on December 14, 2017. Retrieved March 28, 2023.
6. ^ Gerow 1997.
7. ^ "S.F. International Film Festival Schedule". The San Francisco Examiner. April 24, 1998. p. D-6.
8. ^ Crow, Jonathan. "Cure (1997)". AllMovie. Retrieved May 2, 2018.
9. ^ a b Clark.
10. ^ Harris 2002.
11. ^ Kiyoshi Kurosawa's CURE [Kyua] (Masters of Cinema) New & Exclusive UK HD Trailer, February 2018, archived from the original on December 21, 2021, retrieved April 29, 2020
12. ^ "Cure". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved April 23, 2023.
13. ^ "Cure". Metacritic. Fandom, Inc. Retrieved May 22, 2025.
14. ^ Mes, Tom (March 20, 2001). "Midnight Eye review: Cure (Kyua, 1997, Kiyoshi KUROSAWA". Midnight Eye. Retrieved July 21, 2019.
15. ^ Scott, A. O. (August 3, 2001). "Film in Review; 'Cure'". The New York Times.
16. ^ Tobias, Scott (March 29, 2002). "Cure". The A.V. Club.
17. ^ Monohan, Stephanie (January 7, 2020). "Cure". Screen Slate.
18. ^ "Embrace the role of chance in filmmaking, says Qumra Master Kiyoshi Kurosawa". Doha Film Institute. Retrieved April 29, 2020.
19. ^ Joon-ho, Bong (2012). "Bong Joon-ho - BFI - British Film Institute". Sight & Sound. Archived from the original on August 25, 2012.

## Sources

[edit]

* Clark, Jason. "Cure (1997)". AllMovie. Archived from the original on April 21, 2015. Retrieved May 2, 2018.
* Gerow, Aaron (December 25, 1997). "Cure*". The Daily Yomiuri. p. 9\. Archived from the original on May 9, 2015. Retrieved March 28, 2023.
* Harris, Dana (November 13, 2002). "UA Sure 'Cure' Will Redo". Variety. Retrieved March 28, 2023.
* Murguia, Salvador Jimenez, ed. (2016). The Encyclopedia of Japanese Horror Films. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1442261679.

## External links

[edit]

* Cure at IMDb
* Cure at the Japanese Movie Database (in Japanese)
* Cure at the TCM Movie Database
* Cure at Letterboxd

* v
* t
* e

Films directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa

* Kandagawa Pervert Wars (1983)
* Sweet Home (1989)
* The Guard from Underground (1992)
* Cure (1997)
* Serpent's Path (1998)
* License to Live (1998)
* Charisma (1999)
* Séance (2000)
* Pulse (2001)
* Bright Future (2003)
* Doppelganger (2003)
* Kazuo Umezu's Horror Theater: House of Bugs (2005)
* Loft (2005)
* Retribution (2006)
* Tokyo Sonata (2008)
* Real (2013)
* Seventh Code (2013)
* 1905 (cancelled)
* Journey to the Shore (2015)
* Creepy (2016)
* Daguerrotype (2016)
* Before We Vanish (2017)
* Foreboding (2018)
* To the Ends of the Earth (2019)
* Wife of a Spy (2020)
* Cloud (2024)
* Serpent's Path (2024)

* v
* t
* e

Yokohama Film Festival Award for Best Film

* Taiyō o Nusunda Otoko (1980)
* Zigeunerweisen (1981)
* Something Like It (1982)
* Exchange Students (1983)
* The Family Game (1984)
* Mahjong hōrōki (1985)
* Love Hotel (1986)
* House of Wedlock (1987)
* The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On (1988)
* Rock yo shizukani nagareyo (1989)
* Dotsuitarunen (1990)
* Sakura no Sono (1991)
* A Scene at the Sea (1992)
* Sumo Do, Sumo Don't (1993)
* All Under the Moon (1994)
* Tokarefu (1995)
* Love Letter (1996)
* Kids Return (1997)
* Onibi (1998)
* Cure (1999)
* Keiho (2000)
* Face (2001)
* Go (2002)
* Hush! (2003)
* Vibrator (2004)
* Kamikaze Girls (2005)
* Break Through! (2006)
* Sway (2008)
* I Just Didn't Do It (2008)
* Departures (2009)
* Dear Doctor (2010)
* 13 Assassins (2011)
* Someday (2012)
* The Kirishima Thing (2013)
* The Devil's Path (2014)
* The Light Shines Only There (2015)
* Our Little Sister (2016)
* In This Corner of the World (2017)
* The Tokyo Night Sky Is Always the Densest Shade of Blue (2018)
* Asako I & II (2019)
* It Feels So Good (2020)
* Labyrinth of Cinema (2021)
* Intolerance (2022)
* Love Is Light (2023)
* Small, Slow But Steady (2024)
* All the Long Nights (2025)

*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template