CURE. A mysterious thriller in the spirit of “Se7en”

The Japanese film “Cure” is one of the most intriguing thrillers of the last thirty years.

Tokyo police detective Kenichi Takabe is investigating a series of brutal murders. The case is unusual: the perpetrators are apprehended at the scene and put up no resistance; they remember their actions but cannot explain their motives. The victims seem random, yet each one is mutilated with an “X” carved into their neck or chest. Assisting Takabe in the investigation is his acquaintance, forensic psychologist Shin Sakuma. Together, they follow a lead that brings them to a mysterious drifter named Kunio Mamiya, who suffers from short-term memory loss—he doesn’t even know his own name. During questioning, Mamiya cleverly evades Takabe’s questions and hints at knowing much about Takabe’s personal life, especially his mentally ill wife. It soon becomes apparent that Mamiya once studied psychology, mesmerism, and hypnosis. Takabe suspects that Mamiya hypnotized people and compelled them to kill. But does that make him a murderer?

Kiyoshi Kurosawa (unrelated to Akira Kurosawa) is a Japanese director, screenwriter, author, academic, and film critic. He began his career in the film industry in the 1970s, directing short films, erotic films, and crime movies. “Cure” was a breakthrough in his career: it had international distribution, impressed Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, and Bong Joon-ho, and sparked a global interest in Japanese horror films such as Hideo Nakata’s “The Ring” (1998), Takashi Miike’s “Audition” (1999), and Takashi Shimizu’s “Ju-on: The Grudge” (2002). Originally, “Cure” was to be titled “Dendoushi” (Japanese for “evangelist” or “preacher”), but the title was changed after the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway by the Aum Shinrikyo cult, which killed thirteen people and injured over a thousand. To avoid any association with religious cults, the title was reconsidered, as the memory of this tragedy was still fresh.

Kurosawa admitted that he watched a lot of American horror films growing up: “For a few years, I wanted to make something in this genre. The rise in popularity of genre films made it easier to finance and produce this project.” “Cure”, however, is not purely genre-based: it straddles the line between Japanese horror films and police procedural thrillers, evoking the tone of “The Silence of the Lambs” (1991) by Jonathan Demme and “Seven” (1995) by David Fincher. Despite these similarities, Kurosawa speaks in a wholly original voice. To extend the metaphor, the vocabulary may be similar, but the sentence structure is entirely different. “Cure” doesn’t aim to shock or horrify like typical horror films (even supernatural elements are subtly implied) nor to present a realistic portrayal of an investigation like thrillers (the perpetrator is caught quickly); instead, it delves into philosophical, epistemological, and almost existential themes.

Many critics have noted parallels between Kurosawa’s films and the works of Andrei Tarkovsky. Both filmmakers share a penchant for a slow pace, long takes, a dreamlike atmosphere, and an exploration of themes like spirituality, metaphysics, memory, human nature, and identity. “Who are you?” Mamiya asks every person he encounters. No one can move beyond a standard reply like “I am a police officer,” “I am married,” or “I am a doctor.” Even Mamiya himself cannot answer this question (whether he has truly lost his memory or is merely feigning it is irrelevant). Takabe appears rational, grounded, capturing the perpetrator and exacting punishment, yet he ultimately fails to solve the mystery; worse still, he becomes the unwitting successor to Mamiya’s “work”—and even then, he is no closer to uncovering the truth. At this point, what emerges from this unsettling thriller is a terrifying film about the impossibility of true understanding.