Kiyoshi Kurosawa Movies
Kiyoshi Kurosawa's films are unique in the film world. They are genre flicks that seem to defy the confines of genre. They are philosophical treatises on the individual in society, often as brilliant as they are obscure, though they still manage to thrill, amuse, and entertain. Widely regarded as one of the most talented filmmakers of New Japanese Cinema (other such directors include Shinji Somai, Takashi Miike, and Nobuhiro Suwa), Kurosawa is a bold new voice in World Cinema.Born in Kobe in 1955, Kurosawa (no relation to Akira Kurosawa) studied film under noted theorist Shigehiko Hasumi at Rikkyo University. An avid amateur 8mm filmmaker since high school, Kurosawa's short film Shigarami was selected as part of the 1981 PIA Film Festival, a prestigious showcase for young talent in Japan. From there, he landed a job as assistant director with Shinji Somai. In 1983, he directed his first feature, The Kandagawa Wars. He first garnered critical attention with his next effort, The Excitement of the Do-Re-Mi-Fa Girl, starring actor-turned-director Juzo Itami. Though financed as a pink eiga -- the soft-core porn genre that dominated much of the Japanese domestic market through the 1970s -- the film defiantly skews hard and fast categorization. Sex scenes are intercut with extended discussion on philosophy. Stylistically, the film bares more commonality with Jean-Luc Godard and Seijun Suzuki than with mainstream pinku directors like Noboru Tanaka. Since then, he steadily gained cult recognition for his films, particularly for his Suit Yourself or Shoot Yourself series.
His big break came with the supernatural crime thriller Cure (1997). Enigmatic, creepy, and genuinely frightening, Cure wowed audiences with its intensity and impressed intellectuals with its postmodern exploration of identity. Moreover, the film garnered a great deal of critical buzz on the festival circuit, including Toronto, Rotterdam, and San Francisco. Star Koji Yakusho won Best Actor at the Tokyo Film Festival. Kurosawa's subsequent films have all displayed his trademark elusiveness and have served to bolster his profile. License to Live (1998) which he wrote with the help of a Sundance Institute Scholarship, was screened at the Berlin Film Festival, while Charisma (1999) was invited to be screened the Director's Week section at Cannes. That same year, his work was showcased as a part of the Toronto Film Festival's Director's Spotlight.
On the heels of the low-key drama Barren Illusions and the made for television frightener Seance, Kurosawa crafted Pulse, a slow-burn apocalyptic shocker that many considered to the one of the best horror films of the decade. A quiet, deliberate, and notably restrained tale of dread that would ultimately have all subtlety sapped for a rambunctious American re-make, Pulse spoke soulfully to many modern viewers who felt that their human connection had been woefully lost in the endless quest for technological convenience. Though such subsequent efforts as the existential drama Bright Future and the comedic thriller Doppleganger wouldn't be recieved with nearly as much enthusiasm as Pulse, the tireless director continued to challenge audiences with his philosophically-minded films and soon returned to the realm of horror with The Loft (2005). As with any semi-successful Japanese horror films in the early years of the new millennium, an American remake was quickly announced.
When he is not making movies, Kurosawa teaches at the newly formed Film School of Tokyo. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
A typical household secretly teeters on the verge of collapse in this stark drama from director Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Businessman Ryuhei Sasaki (Teruyuki Kagawa) is the principal breadwinner of a seemingly happy family in Tokyo, with Ryuhei looking after his teenage sons, Takashi (Yu Koyanagi) and Kenji (Kai Inowaki), with his wife, Megumi (Kyoko Koizumi). But what Megumi and her children don't know is that Ryuhei is out of a job; his position was outsourced to a company in China, and he's too ashamed to tell his family the truth. Ryuhei leaves home every morning as if he's going to the office, but instead visits employment centers in hopes of landing a new job and eats lunch at a kitchen for the indigent. One day, while waiting for free porridge, Ryuhei meets an old friend who is in a similar predicament, Kurosu (Kanji Tsuda); Kurosu ends up bringing Ryuhei home for dinner so they can discuss their fictive day at work and maintain their subterfuge. Megumi, who is not as well-adjusted as she appears, one day spots her husband in a soup line while running errands, and discovers the truth about his employment status, though she doesn't dare confront him. And as Takashi and Kenji begin drifting away from their emotionally distant parents, Kenji starts to suspect things are not as they should be, and begins spending his lunch money on music lessons in hopes of starting a career as a pianist. Tokyo Sonata was an official entry at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Teruyuki Kagawa, Kyoko Koizumi, (more)
- 2007
- Add Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows to Queue Add Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows to top of Queue
While his name was known to only the most obsessive film fans during the course of his career, Val Lewton produced a handful of low-budget horror movies in the 1940's that had a revolutionary impact on the genre. Working within a special production unit at RKO Pictures, Lewton's films were mood pieces that created an atmosphere of anxiety rather than aiming for blunt shocks, and used shadowy camerawork and careful pacing to infer more than the audience actually saw. Several of Lewton's productions became minor hits, most notably Cat People, and a number of others (including Isle Of The Dead, I Walked With A Zombie, Curse Of The Cat People, The Seventh Victim and The Body Snatchers) are cult favorites to this day. Lewton also discovered a number of directors who would become major players later on, including Robert Wise, Mark Robson and Jacques Tourneur, but Lewton's efforts to move on to bigger budget projects fared poorly, and poor health claimed his life in 1951, six years after his last picture for RKO. Film critic and archivist Kent Jones traces the story of Val Lewton's life and career while paying homage to the films that made his name in the documentary Val Lewton: Man In The Shadows, which features highlights from Lewton's best films while sharing the memories of those who knew and worked with him. Originally produced for the Turner Classic Movies cable network, Val Lewton: Man In the Shadows is narrated by filmmaker and lifelong film fan Martin Scorsese. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Roger Corman, Glenn Gabbard, (more)
- 2006
- PG13
- Add Pulse to Queue Add Pulse to top of Queue
When wireless technology puts humans into contact with an unstoppable force that's determined to claim the lives of the living for the souls of the damned, it's up to a group of determined teens to close the gate before it's too late in director Jim Sonzero's remake of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's apocalyptic horror classic. A doorway between the human realm and the spiritual realm has been opened, and now the technology that once made humankind the ruler of the planet has become its digital Achilles heel. With every call made and every e-mail checked, life is slowly being stolen from the living and claimed for the dead. With no way of turning off the connection and no means of reasoning with a force they cannot understand, a desperate group of college students must discover a means of stopping the takeover before the entire planet is transformed into a cosmic haunting ground for wayward souls in search of a home. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Kristen Bell, Ian Somerhalder, (more)
Japanese horror producer Taka Ichise -- the force behind Ringu and Ju-on: The Grudge -- and Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the director of Pulse, team up for the supernatural horror picture Retribution (aka Sakebi), starring Koji Yakusho, Riona Hazuki, Tsuyoshi Ihara, Manami Konishi, Ryo Kase, Hiroyuki Hirayama, and Jô Odagiri. Yakusho plays Yoshioka, a cop tormented by strange details surrounding the murder of a local woman (Riona Hazuki) in a red dress. Though ostensibly killed by being drowned in a shallow, tepid pool of muddy water, an autopsy reveals the woman's belly as full of seawater. Moreover, a button found at the murder scene matches one that is missing from a coat Yoshioka purchased, and fingerprints that cover the body match his own. Yoshioka thus immediately reasons that he must have killed the woman but blocked it out, despite the assurance of his colleagues that he probably just touched the body sans gloves. He is soon visited repeatedly by the apparition of the victim (red dress intact). As these visitations build in intensity and bizarreness, another drowning murder -- that of a surgeon's son -- occurs in exactly the same manner, and the evidence this time seems to point so conclusively to Yoshioka that he could be sent away at any moment. But the story is far from over. To say more would ruin the picture, but Kurosawa then springs an endless series of twists and double-crosses that force the audience to reevaluate everything that has come before. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
- Starring:
- Koji Yakusho, Manami Konishi, (more)
- 2004
Documentary filmmaker Kenjiro Fujii takes a look at the history of a distinctly Japanese brand of softcore pornography in this extensive examination of the "pinku eiga" genre. For more than 40 years, so-called "pink" films have served as both a key source of revenue for the Japanese film industry as well as a launching pad for the careers of such mainstream filmmakers as Kiyoshi Kurosawa. After providing a detailed history of the still-profitable and popular genre through interviews with a variety of behind-the-scenes players and clips from such classic pink films as Fish Bait Boobies, director Fujii shifts his focus to the production of an upcoming pink film to offer a glimpse into the creative and stylistic evolution of the genre. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
Yuka (Hiromi Nagasaku) is an attractive young woman whose brother has recently died under mysterious circumstances. Shortly before his untimely death, Yuka got her first glimpse of his double, who has since moved into their apartment and taken his place. Hayasaki (Koji Yakusho) is a brilliant but mercurial scientist obsessed with perfecting a robot chair for the disabled, with wheels and mechanical arms that are supposed to function according to the "will" of the user. In his single-mindedness, he harangues his underlings and aggravates his employer, who is focused on the bottom line. After a co-worker tells Hayasaki about Yuka's experience, he finds himself being stalked by a doppelganger. At first, he thinks he is doomed, like Yuka's brother, and tries to avoid his double. Eventually, he loses his job, and control of his invention, and the doppelganger steps in to take care of everything. The double trashes Hayasaki's former lab, stealing the robot chair so the scientist can continue his work. The double also hires a young thug, Kimishima (Yusuke Santamaria), to work for them. The double says Kimishima is "just dumb enough not to find us alarming." But Hayasaki's fears come to the fore when the double takes advantage of Yuka's interest in him. And when his former employer, Aoki (Masahiro Toda), now disgraced, comes looking for a piece of the robot-chair action, the scientist finds himself uncertain who to trust. Doppelganger, a dark comedy directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Cure) from a script by Kurosawa and Ken Furusawa, was shown at the 2004 Rotterdam Film Festival. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi
- Starring:
- Koji Yakusho, Hiromi Nagasaku, (more)
Directed by Takashi Shimizu, The Grudge follows volunteer homecare worker Rika Nishida (Megumi Okina), whose altruism leads her to Chiharu (Yui Ichikawa), a catatonic old woman slowly dying in a home filled with years worth of accumulated filth. Rika's suspicion is aroused when, during the course of her volunteer duties, she can't help but sense an overwhelming feeling of dread. Eventually, Rika opens an old wardrobe only to discover a malevolent boy who introduces himself as Toshio (Yuya Ozeki). It seems as though the house was formerly occupied by a young couple -- Katsuya (Kanji Tsuda), Chiharu's son, and his wife, Kazumi (Risa Matsuda). Sadly, Kazumi was killed thanks to Toshio shortly after moving in, and it wasn't long before Katsuya met a similar fate. When one of Rika's colleagues alerts the local authorities, an investigation turns the house inside out and exposes an ancient and deadly history. ~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi
- Starring:
- Megumi Okina, Risa Matsuda, (more)
Acclaimed Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa departs from the horror genre for this mystical story of urban ennui. Friends Mamoru (Tadanobu Asano) and Yuji (Joe Odagiri) are aimless young men stuck in dead-end jobs in a dreary factory in Tokyo. Mamoru, the more antisocial of the two, is obsessed with his pet project of acclimating a poisonous jellyfish to fresh water by gradually changing the water in its tank. One night, he inexplicably murders his boss' family and is sentenced to death. Yuji, left to continue the jellyfish experiment, befriends Mamoru's estranged father, and the two form a bond that helps him overcome his emotional troubles. But his attachment to the jellyfish is even stronger, and problems arise when he accidentally releases the poisonous creature into the canals of Tokyo. ~ Tom Vick, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jô Odagiri, Tadanobu Asano, (more)
As one of the most cutting-edge Japanese filmmakers, Kiyoshi Kurosawa once again wraps a lowbrow, much-maligned genre -- in this case horror flicks (which were the rage in Japan at the time of this release) -- around some decidedly highbrow philosophical concepts. At the film's outset, Michi (Kumiko Aso) and her cohorts at a rooftop nursery cannot get ahold of their co-worker, Taguchi (Kenji Mizuhashi), who has an important floppy disk. When she ventures over to his apartment, she finds him pale, listless, and unusually quiet -- that is until he suddenly hangs himself. While the suicide is disconcerting, what really freaks Michi out is that Taguchi's body seems to dissolve into the wall, leaving a sickly black stain. Meanwhile, college slacker Ryosuke Kawashima (Haruhiko Kato) logs onto the Internet for the first time even though he is not particularly fond of computers. Instead of stumbling into a porn site or a chat room, he finds himself in a most peculiar site -- he just sees ghostly images of other people going about their everyday life. Then the computer prompts him, asking, "Would you like to meet ghosts?" Even though he eventually pulls the plug, the machine still on occasion springs to life. He eventually consults a comely computer maven named Harue (Koyuki), who is also utterly baffled. As more and more Internet users seal themselves into their rooms with red duct tape and melt into black splotches, Kawashima and Michi independently come to discover that the Internet has become portal for an increasingly crowded afterlife. As Tokyo becomes increasingly depopulated, Kawashima and Michi cross paths. This film -- which also features cameos by Kurosawa regulars Koji Yakusho, Jun Fubuki, and Sho Aikawa -- was screened at the 2001 Cannes and Toronto Film Festivals. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- Starring:
- Haruhiko Kato, Kumiko Aso, (more)
The Sixth Sense and A Simple Plan by way of Martin Heidegger, this genre-bending thriller is directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Katsuhiko (Koji Yakusho) is a mild-mannered sound-technician who is married to Junco (Jun Fubuki). While at first glance Junco seems to be an average hausfrau, she possesses great clairvoyant powers. Though she has slowly and quietly built a reputation as a medium, she proves to be completely incapable of working in a normal service industry job; she has the unfortunately tendency of being able to see the crimes of her patrons. Katsuhiko is aware of her unusual abilities but prefers to think of her as "normal." Young psychology graduate student Hayakawa (Teuyoshi Kusanagi) invites Junco to join his study on the paranormal. At the same time, the police are desperately searching for a young girl who was kidnapped by an ex-cop turned pervert. At Hayakawa's behest, the cops consult with Junco as to the child's whereabouts. Ironically enough, the girl escapes her captor and takes refuge in Katsuhiko's equipment case while he records sounds in the mountains. The next day, Junco's psychic sonar goes off and she discovers the missing child in their garage. This freak happenstance awakens a long-dormant ambition in Junco: convinced that her discovery was not a striking enough find, she hatches an ill-conceived scheme to make it seem more dramatic. While Katsuhiko tends to the unconscious girl, Junco scatters clues throughout the western suburbs of Tokyo and then informs the police of her psychic "insights." As the film progresses, their plan goes awry and the child meets a bad end. Junco's abilities boomerang on her, and soon she and Katsuhiko are haunted by the ghost of the girl. Noted stars Yukari Ishida and Show Aikawa make cameos. This film was screened at the 2000 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- Starring:
- Koji Yakusho, Jun Fubuki, (more)
- 1999
Maverick Japanese auteur Kiyoshi Kurosawa creates a surreal yet laconic love story set in the dystopic near future as Tokyo is gripped by mysterious and virulent pollen. The story focuses on Haru, a thoroughly bored music producer who justifiably fears that he might literally disappear into thin air; and Michi, an employee at an international mail carrier, who likes to decorate her apartment with stolen items and fantasizes about going to foreign lands. Listless and prone to violent fantasies -- his of gang war, hers of suicide -- the couple volunteers to be test subjects for a new experimental drug designed to combat the effects of the pollen, even though the side effects render them sterile. Within this vague and insecure world, the two try to maintain their love but find themselves drifting apart. Every half-thought attempt at salvaging their relationship only results in further alienation. Haru buys a dog but eventually he gives it away, putting further strain on the two. The couple attempts to flee their everyday existence and visit the sea, when they happen upon a washed-up skeleton. The emotional fallout finally results in the relationship's breaking up. Later, they meet again in a most surprising fashion. Kurosawa's film, told largely with long takes and a minimum of dialog, reads like an ironic reworking of alienated youth dramas. These characters are so internally inert and emotionally cut off that they seem to verge on the darkly comic; yet their love for one another keeps them from sliding into the abyss. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- Starring:
- Shinji Takeda, Miako Tadano, (more)
Idiosyncratic auteur Kiyoshi Kurosawa directed this bizarre allegorical tale about a tree named Charisma. Goro Yabuike (Koji Yakusho) is a burned-out hostage negotiator called to rescue an MP from a gun-toting lunatic demanding that "rule of the world" be restored. In a moment of indecision, he fails to act; as a result, both the MP and the lunatic die, while Yabuike is sent on a forced vacation to an unnamed forest area. There he comes upon a single tree surrounded by an I.V. pole, metal supports, and strange altar-like objects. Yabuike soon discovers that the locals are enmeshed in a battle over the tree's future. The plant is staunchly, sometimes violently defended by Kiriyama (Hiroyuki Ikeuchi), a young resident of an abandoned sanitarium who believes that Charisma is unique and should be preserved. On the other hand, Mitsuko (Jun Fubuki), a do-gooder botanist, credits the mysterious tree with poisoning its fellow plants and upsetting the eco-system. Other characters include thuggish lumberjacks and rapacious tree-hunters hoping to buy or steal the rare tree at any cost. As things come to a head, Yabuike is forced to make the sort of decisions of which he was incapable as a hostage negotiator. Is Charisma a force of evil or the victim of the obsessions of those around it? Is it the unique specimen that should be saved or the entire forest? Again Yabuike is flummoxed, but this time he acts before it is too late. This adventurous, psychedelic film explores many of the same themes of the individual's fate in modern society as Kurosawa's early work, Cure (1997). Charisma was screened in the "Directors Fortnight" section of the 1999 Cannes Film Festival and as a part of the director's spotlight at the 1999 Toronto International Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- Starring:
- Koji Yakusho, Hiroyuki Ikeuchi, (more)
- 1999
When oddball auteur Kiyoshi Kurosawa received an eccentric offer to make two films in two weeks, on a low budget and using the same cast, the result was the cinematic equivalent of fraternal twins. Though both Spider's Gaze and Serpent's Path are gangster films about the desire for revenge, and both films feature a protagonist named Nijima played convincingly by Sho Aikawa, the two films are completely different in tone and plot. Nonetheless, they seem freakishly interlocked in ways that defy the conventionally linear relationship of a sequel, as each of these enigmatic, absorbing films elucidates and alters our understanding of the other. Spider's Gaze concerns Nijima, a white-collar worker who one day finds the man responsible for his young daughter's brutal rape and murder. He tortures and interrogates the man, who maintains his innocence, before killing and burying him. He returns to his ordinary life feeling listless and hollow, until he meets an old high school friend who introduces him to his hapless band of hired killers. His skill in the assassination business catches the attentions of a bigger crime boss. For reasons that remain opaque, Nijima is assigned to investigate his friend, which ultimately results in a bloody confrontation. In spite of its grisly subject matter, the film is remarkably light and filled with loopy details, such as mobsters training on rollerblades and a fossil-obsessed godfather, that recall the absurdist flourishes of Haruki Murakami novels or Seijun Suzuki films. This film was screened at the 1999 Toronto Film Festival as part of the Director's Spotlight. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sho Aikawa, Dankan, (more)
- 1999
When oddball auteur Kiyoshi Kurosawa received an eccentric offer to make two films in two weeks, on a low budget and using the same cast, the result was the cinematic equivalent of fraternal twins. Though both Spider's Gaze and Serpent's Path are gangster films about the desire for revenge, and both films feature a protagonist named Nijima played convincingly by Sho Aikawa, the two movies are completely different in tone and plot. Nonetheless, they seem freakishly interlocked in ways that defy the conventionally linear relationship of a sequel, as each of these enigmatic, absorbing films elucidates our understanding of the other. Unlike the light-hearted tone of Spider's Gaze, Serpent's Path is a grim yakuza film featuring extremes of violence and brutality. Nijima is an astrophysics lecturer who, for some obscure reason, aids a half-crazed mobster named Miyashita in his pursuit of those responsible for the brutal rape and murder of his young daughter. They abduct a series of Miyashita's colleagues, drag them to a remote warehouse, and attempt to extract confessions from them through torture. As the body count rises, it becomes clear that Miyashita and his dwindling gang were involved in the production of snuff movies. When Nijima reveals his motives for helping the gangster, our understanding of both this film and Spider's Gaze are completely altered. This film was screened at the 1999 Toronto Film Festival as part of the Director's Spotlight. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sho Aikawa, Teruyuki Kagawa, (more)
- 1998
In a departure from his acclaimed horror films Cure (1997) and Charisma (1998), Kiyoshi Kurosawa's License to Live is a gentle family melodrama that doubles as a meditation on personal identity. The film focuses on Yutaka (Hidetoshi Nishijima), the victim of an ugly car accident who suddenly wakes up from a 10-year coma. He soon discovers that his world has been turned upside-down in the intervening years. His formerly close-knit family has parted ways and his family home has been turned into a low-rent fish farm and industrial dumping ground by Fujimoto (Koji Yakusho), a gruff huckster friend of his father. Though Yutaka moves back into his family home, he is left feeling confused and unsettled, helped only by Fujimoto, who reluctantly serves as pseudo-father. Yutaka tries to pick up where he left off, but his attempts at meeting old friends and family members leave him feeling only more isolated. In a last-ditch attempt to reclaim his past, he reopens the pony ranch run by his financially incompetent father when he was a child. For a time, his mother Sachiko (Lily) and his sister Chizuru (Kumiko Asou) return to the homestead, and a semblance of the old family begins to cohere -- until a surprising, emotional twist forces Yutaka to realize that he must move on. As in his other films, Kurosawa couches metaphysical themes of identity and mortality in an engaging genre vehicle. Yet this work displays a strikingly minimalist style and a deft use of mood and pacing that point toward a greater maturity. This film was screened at the 1999 Toronto Film Festival as part of the Director's Spotlight. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- Starring:
- Hidetoshi Nishijima, Koji Yakusho, (more)
Oddball Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa directed this haunting police thriller about murder, mind control, and the power of charisma. Police Detective Takabe (Koji Yakusho) is tracking a series of bizarre murders, all committed in exactly the same manner: a giant X is slashed in the flesh of the victims. But that's where the similarities end. In each case, seemingly well-adjusted people suddenly kill without understanding why. Baffled, Takabe consults his psychologist friend Sakuma (Tsuyoshi Ujiki), who finds no relationships among the perpetrators and rules out any connection with the media. The investigation eventually leads to a young drifter named Mamiya (Masato Hagiwara), who asks everyone he meets the same simple question: "Who are you?" Usually people respond with such stock answers as "doctor" or "police detective," to which the drifter responds with the same question. Part of Mamiya's reason for this bizarre behavior is that he has been turned inside-out; his interior world is completely empty. He has no memory, no identity, and he does not recognize his own self-image. Yet he does have an insidious, hypnotic ability to get inside the minds of others and unleash their repressed desires to murder. His victims' inability to answer Mamiya's maddeningly simple question shows their own tenuous grasp of their identity. Only Takabe seems to understand the other meaning behind Mamiya's query. His wife Fumie (Anna Nakagawa)'s own personality is slowly being destroyed by mental illness, making her act in increasingly inexplicable ways. Frustrated by Mamiya's sphinx-like ability to fend off the most rigorous interrogation, and yet drawn to his charms, Takabe undergoes a journey into the dark recesses of his own self, while slowly uncovering the secrets of the drifter's power. This film, which first brought international attention to Kurosawa, transcends the boundaries of its genre to become a riveting exploration of the collapse of identity in a postmodern age. It was screened at the 1999 Toronto Film Festival as a part of the Director's Spotlight. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- Starring:
- Koji Yakusho, Tsuyoshi Ujiki, (more)
- 1996
Cult filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa directs the third installment of this straight-to-video horror series. Miyako (Minako Tanaka) is a frustrated insurance saleswoman stuck in a major dry spell. She tries every trick in the book, including aggressive flirting, which gets her plenty of gropers but no buyers. One day while venturing down a narrow stairwell, she injures her ankle and happens upon Mitsuru (Akiharu Nakazawa) who works for some mysterious foreign company. Decked out in high goth style -- complete with long inky black hair and mascaraed eyes -- Mitsuru cuts quite an odd figure, yet his seductive though menacing ways make him difficult for Miyako to resist. Escorting her to his office to treat her ankle, Miyako notices that his all-female staff seem more glassy-eyed and soul-deadened than the average office workers. In fact, they seem almost -- almost -- like zombies. Later, weird things start happening. Mitsuko finds vomit on her doorstep, she seems to be tailed by a shadowy woman in a red dress, and most strikingly, she finds herself utterly powerless against Mitsuru's advances. Soon she is offered a job at Mitsuru's office among the undead and the damned. Does Miyako's potential new place of employment at least offer stock options in exchange for her soul? ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
Rating Systems
Blockbuster
BLOCKBUSTER name, design and related marks are trademarks of Blockbuster L.L.C.
2013 Blockbuster L.L.C. All rights reserved.
Portions of Content Provided by Rovi Corporation. 2013 Rovi Corporation.