TOKYO (AP) — Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, known as a master of horror films set within the neurotic realism of the modern day, will bring his signature edge-of-your-seat storytelling to a genre he has never tackled before: the samurai movie.
“I do want to do it once, and it looks like it might be really happening, although things are still uncertain. I may finally be able to make my samurai film,” he told The Associated Press, noting he couldn’t give much detail just yet.
His upcoming samurai film will not have sword-fight scenes or action-packed outdoor shots that characterize the genre, known as “jidaigeki.” Instead, it will be the same creepy quiet narrative of Kurosawa movies, where the action takes place almost claustrophobically, in this case, in a castle that just happens to be set in the samurai era.
That concept alone is enough to pique a movie lover’s interest.
The horror master was just honored at this year’s Japan Cuts film festival in New York. The festival presented him the Cut Above award, international recognition that follows the Silver Lion at the 2020 Venice Film Festival for “Wife of a Spy,” centered around a troubled married couple during World War II.
Kurosawa, who is not related to “Seven Samurai” and “Rashomon,” director Akira Kurosawa, said period pieces are difficult to make due to the extraordinary costs of sets, props and costuming.
He also made it clear he isn’t interested in directing science fiction, but rather pursues realism. However, he readily acknowledged that his films are all made up, in fact, “a lie.”
“Maybe this is my weakness, or my characteristic; I want to tell my stories in a setting of a very real modern-day society, yet I want to entertain,” he said. “And so it’s a contradiction that I aim for every time,”
“You create a lie, like a horrific character (in a realistic framework),” he said.
Kurosawa, who has managed to produce a film a year over his 40-year career, invests a lot of time researching the setting and backdrop of his films, including much reading, to make it as realistic as possible.
In his most recent thriller, “Cloud,” a man who is down on his luck, portrayed by Masaki Suda, makes dubious profits by reselling items he finds online at far higher prices. It starts harmless enough, except, as the plot thickens, the protagonist is confronted by victims out for revenge.
Kurosawa is not one to hold back on violence, often gory and extreme but beautifully shot, sometimes almost comical in its bizarreness.
“Cure,” a 1997 film about a police detective investigating a series of gruesome murders, starring Koji Yakusho, uses continuous shots purposely without cuts to bring out the varied emotions, and the coldness of the characters, sometimes changing viscerally within the same scene, to explore madness.
Despite his insistence on realism, Kurosawa, who counts Alfred Hitchcock among his influences, doesn’t rule out the addition of tiny unreal elements for that perfectly subtle and eerie effect. But his movies are never happy-go-lucky, he said.
“Everything being happy is not possible if you start with the realism of modern-day Japan,” said Kurosawa.
Kurosawa believes that while filmmaking is usually a giant confusing project where multiple players must work together, producers worrying about the box office and actors concerned about their roles, it is ultimately about dealing with what feels right to your deepest self.
“In the end, it all boils down to: I understand there are many opinions, but we must choose what is right. What does being right mean? To figure that out is the creator’s job,” he said.
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Yuri Kageyama is on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@yurikageyama
