Japanese genre maven Kiyoshi Kurosawa is mostly known outside his homeland for eerie, visually inventive films like Cure, Pulse and Loft that brought the J-horror trend into the arthouse. But he’s also made psychological thrillers (Creepy), serial killer flicks (Serpent’s Path), science-fiction movies (Before We Vanish), a darkly comic anti-capitalist actioner (last year’s Cloud) and at least one great drama (Tokyo Sonata).
The auteur can now cross another genre off his bucket list with *The Samurai and the Prisoner *(Kokurojo), a stately and rather stagy historical mystery set during the 16th century, at a time when warring clans fought and outmaneuvered each other for control of the land.