New Times (L.A.) by Andy Klein
The movie is not always satisfying as a standard thriller, nor is it always clear; but it's never dull, either, and it displays a sensibility so weird as to be its own recommendation.
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Japan · 1997
Rated R · 1h 51m
Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Starring Koji Yakusho, Tsuyoshi Ujiki, Anna Nakagawa, Yukijiro Hotaru
Genre Crime, Thriller, Horror, Mystery
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Detective Takabe and psychologist Sakuma must solve a series of grisly murders, linked only by a red X mark on the victims' necks. Things get even more complicated when there seem to be multiple killers --- all with no memory of their crimes.
New Times (L.A.) by Andy Klein
The movie is not always satisfying as a standard thriller, nor is it always clear; but it's never dull, either, and it displays a sensibility so weird as to be its own recommendation.
San Francisco Chronicle by Bob Graham
It's more psychological than a genre movie, and that is the source of both its greatest interest and its biggest problem.
The New York Times by Dana Stevens
The final scene is a piece of cunning visual wit that makes you realize how artful and sneaky Cure, has been beneath its clinical, deadpan surface.
Transcends its murkiness and eats into the mind. Cure is what ails you.
New York Daily News by Elizabeth Weitzman
Kurosawa may be considered the genius, but his movie would go nowhere without its extraordinary leading man.
Cure has a generic resemblance to "Seven," but it's far more oblique, and that much more troubling.
Chicago Tribune by John Petrakis
What is most impressive about Kurosawa's direction is how he uses the entire frame, complete with expository background action, to fill in the story blanks. His eagerness to suggest, rather than declare, marks him as a director with confidence to spare.
The result is somewhat confounding, but utterly spellbinding.
Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan
With its gift for infusing uneasiness into every frame, Kurosawa's moody, unnerving film continues to spook us even after the lights have gone on.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer by William Arnold
Clearly, this film is less than a suspense masterpiece. Its violence is often gratuitous.
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With its extended, meditative shots and attention to negative space, CURE takes its time getting under your skin and building up an incredibly effective sense of unease. You are drawn hypnotically into the story, but any feeling that you might understand what is going on is undermined by the sinister emptiness at the film's core.