Cure

The combo Kurosawa/Yakusho turned out to be a commercial success, though I can't say I was a major fan at first. Kurosawa's films were stylistically too dry and too focused on their narrative. The setup is interesting enough here, but I didn't really care for the execution at all. It doesn't help a film like this took 2 full hours to reach its end.

A string of murders is keeping the police quite busy. Each time the victim is found with an X mark on their neck. Much weirder is the fact that the murderers are found right next to their victims, though they can't remember anything about what they did. The only thing these murders have in common is a young man found in the vicinity of every single one. He seems to be having a strange effect on the people around him.

The setup is pretty cool, the rest of the film is too grim and dull though. Yakusho fails to excite, the cinematography is dreary and the pacing is too slow. The score is about the only nice thing about Cure, but it's not enough to make any real difference. Early Kurosawa was very hot-and-miss for me, this was another clear disappointment.