Cure (Criterion) 11/23 Blu-ray (Rental)

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s arresting international breakthrough established him as one of the leaders of an emerging new wave of Japanese horror while pushing the genre into uncharted realms of philosophical and existential exploration. A string of shocking, seemingly unmotivated murders—each committed by a different person yet all bearing the same grisly hallmarks—leads Detective Takabe (Koji Yakusho) into a labyrinthine investigation to discover what connects them, and into a disturbing game of cat and mouse with an enigmatic amnesiac (Masato Hagiwara) who may be evil incarnate. Awash in hushed, hypnotic dread, Cure is a tour de force of psychological tension and a hallucinatory journey into the darkest recesses of the human mind. BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES 4K digital restoration, supervised by cinematographer Tokusho Kikumura, with uncompressed stereo soundtrack New conversation between director Kiyoshi Kurosawa and filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi Interviews with actors Masato Hagiwara and Koji Yakusho Interview from 2003 with Kurosawa Trailers and teaser PLUS: An essay by critic Chris Fujiwara