I watched this because Creepy had creeped me out and I wanted more Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Cure is his most famous work and an important movie by any definition, not just within J-horror. The South Korean director Bong Joon-ho calls it one of the greatest films of all time.

Koji Yakusho plays Takabe, a detective investigating a series of impossible murders. In every case, the murderer is easily found but can't explain why they did it. Also, every victim has an identical cross-shaped cut below the neck, even though this isn't public knowledge and the killings were committed independently by people who didn't know each other.

Masato Hagiwara plays Mamiya, an amnesiac who has the most annoying conversations in the world. Everything you ask will be blocked by "what?" "what question?" "I don't remember," "who are you?", etc. He seems to be a wandering homeless idiot. He always wants to talk about you... and it's possible that indulging him might turn you into a killer.

Takabe wants to catch Mamiya and question him. If he succeeds, though, what will happen after that?

Kurosawa creates an unusual kind of horror. It's sinister, uncomfortable boredom. The cinematic eye is cold and dispassionate. Mamiya's physically unimposing and the film has almost no immediate danger, but we understand that talking to him is a bad idea and one wonders if the authorities can handle him. Also, the ending's darker and more ambiguous than Creepy's. You might think you've just watched the traditional happy ending to an American serial killer police procedural, but what's actually happened to our hero? Look at the last scene with the waitress, especially the last two seconds.

Is this film supernatural? Not on the face of it, but it's even more open to that reinterpretation than Creepy. The darkest reading of that final scene almost suggests magic powers. That's not just hypnosis. He'd only said a few words to that waitress. Also, that 19th century historical footage with the faceless man... brrrr.

This film finds new kinds of darkness. It's talking about the potential for anger and worse, under that impeccably polite Japanese surface. See that man who's swearing savagely as he waits to be served, then becomes normal and friendly as he talks to you. Also, who got cured? That's the film's title, after all. Was it Mamiya? Was it Takabe? The final scene suggests that SPOILER is happy and relaxed, as if released from a burden. If that's a cure, let's hope the world stays sick. This movie doesn't resemble ordinary horror films, or indeed any other film I can remember (except Creepy). It's a serial killer investigation, but it's also more. It's unique, strange and disturbing in ways that you'll sometimes struggle even to identify.