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While in the midst of releasing his comedy-crime series SUIT YOURSELF OR SHOOT YOURSELF Kiyoshi Kurosawa took a break to continue Banmei Takahashi’s DOOR series, releasing the body-horror film DOOR III in 1996. On this episode of SERPENT’S PATH we’re looking at the entire DOOR series, starting with the original gory slasher DOOR from 1988, then onto Takahashi’s episodic sequel DOOR II: TOKYO DIARY from 1991 and finishing with Kurosawa’s DOOR III. Often considered a dry run for his 1997 masterpiece CURE, it has little to do with the other two films in the series but makes for fascinating connective tissue between his V-Cinema period and his growing international reputation. CHECK IT OUT!

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SERPENT’S PATH: THE FILMS OF KIYOSHI KUROSAWA returns, and we dive into the third and fourth entries of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s crime-comedy V-cinema series: Suit Yourself or Shoot Yourself: The Loot (1996) (Katte ni shiyagare!! Ôgon keikaku) and Suit Yourself or Shoot Yourself: The Gamble (1996) (Katte ni shiyagare!! Gyakuten keikaku). Once again we follow low-level criminals Yûji (Sho Aikawa) and Kôsaku (Kôyô Maeda) as they find a treasure map(!), win big at the track, get in trouble with yakuza (of course) and maybe, just maybe, learn a little about themselves. Or not! We look at how Kurosawa’s style is developing, where he’s moving to in his career, and look forward to some VERY interesting developments. CHECK IT OUT!

Our major sources for this episode are:

This Tom Mes interview with Kurosawa from Midnight Eye:

http://www.midnighteye.com/interviews/kiyoshi-kurosawa-3/#:~:text=It%20was%20based%20on%20a,I%20actually%20made%20this%20film.

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After a bumpy and controversial start to his career, that bumpiness would continue for Kiyoshi Kurosawa with 1989’s SWEET HOME, a unique videogame/film collaboration that is colorful, entertaining and full of goopy FX by the legendary Dick Smith, but after a post-theatrical re-edit things would go sour between Kurosawa and producer Juzo Itami. It would be a few more years before Kurosawa would direct another feature, returning with the slasher-y office thriller THE GUARD FROM UNDERGROUND which has a number of hints at what would become his trademark style. Let’s check it out!

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It’s the PREMIERE episode of our new limited series SERPENT’S PATH: THE FILMS OF KIYOSHI KUROSAWA and on this episode we discuss why we chose the filmmaker as our subject, our (limited) experience with his work, a bit about his background and dive into his first two features: 1983’s KANDAGAWA PERVERT WARS and 1985’s BUMPKIN SOUP (aka THE EXCITEMENT OF THE DO-RE-MI-FA GIRL). Both films have a unique mix of eroticism and surrealism, and are a world away from the films we most closely associated with Kurosawa. Enjoy!