Horror film director

1. KIYOSHI KUROSAWA
By Curtis French

2. BIOGRAPHY.
• Kiyoshi Kurosawa was born on the 19th of July in 1955 and after studying at
university under the guide of film, critic Shigehiko Hasumi began making 8mm
films. In the 1980’s he began directing adverts and low budget straight to video
films .
• He fists achieved international acclaim with his 1997 crime thriller Cure

3. STYLE AND INFLUENCES.
• Kurosawa’s directing has been compared to the work o Stanley Kubrick and Andrei
Tarkovsky although he has never listed them as his influences but does admit that
the work of Alfred Hitchcock and Yasujiro Ozu has contributed to the way he views
the medium. He also shows admiration to American film directors such as Robert
Aldrich and Tobe Hooper. Tobe Hooper directed the ‘ Texas chainsaw massacre ‘
films
Tobe Hooper

4. REVIEWS.
• Review by mandiapple.com:
Right from the outset, I feel it necessary to point out that Cure, Kiyoshi Kurosawa's major breakthrough hit, is not your average bog-standard
horror flick. In fact, it barely even qualifies as a horror movie at all; it's more like a psychological thriller with vague semi-supernatural
overtones, as shown in its tagline, 'The Power of Suggestion'. But as in the director's later films, such as Korei (aka Seance),
and his complete masterpiece, Kairo (aka Pulse), Cure is willing and able to be three different movies in one - it completely breaks through
the genre boundaries of the 'serial-killer' movie and becomes something entirely different, mystical and troubling, full of unanswered
questions, an almost unbearable atmosphere of tension, and more dark chills than most out-and-out horror films.
• There are other elements which would later influence the making of Kairo (in which, interestingly, Kurosawa gave Cure's star, Koji Yakusho,
a cameo role); for instance, Cure is also shot in an almost-identical style favouring dark, murky, grubby locations, transparent plastic
sheeting, long-distance sequences and muted, washed-out colours. Kurosawa of course went on to make a partial follow-up to Cure, 1999's
Charisma (aka Karisuma), with Yakusho reprising his role from the original film.
• The soundtracks are also very similar: there is no huge dramatic background music featured in either film; instead, you get very little music
(one strangely effective, out-of-place and somewhat chirpy instrumental at the beginning of the film) but lots of ambient atmospherics -
vague rumblings and dead air, quickly contrasted with intercuts of loud machinery or clanking metal. The soundtrack's minimalism (even
omitting any kind of outro music over the end titles, preferring to use instead evening street-sounds with cars and birdsong) really helps to
build up an organic and very realistic feel to the movie - as if it was almost a documentary.

5. WHAT HAVE I LEARNED ?
• From studying Kiyoshi Kurosawas work I have learned that to make a successful
horror you need to think outside the box and not just make and average horror film
and that you do not need to stick to such a broad audience because I you were to try
make it acceptable for a wider ranger of ages then it looses its effect making the film
less scary then it would have been if it was left at its original age rating and is not
edited to change all of the gory of terrifying bits to make it a wide audience film