Japanese horror master Kiyoshi Kurosawa on making his first samurai film
'I do want to do it once, and it looks like it might be really happening, although things are still uncertain. I may finally be able to make my samurai film,' he says, adding he cannot give away much just yet.
His upcoming project will not have sword-fight scenes or action-packed outdoor shots typical of samurai films, or jidaigeki. Instead, it will display the same creepy quiet narrative of his movies, where the action takes place almost claustrophobically – in this case, in a castle that just happens to be set in the samurai era.
That concept alone should be enough to pique a movie lover's interest.
Kurosawa recently received the Cut Above award for outstanding achievements in film at the 2025 Japan Cuts film festival in New York. This honour follows the Silver Lion award for best director, which he received at the 2020
Venice Film Festival for his movie
Wife of a Spy , about a troubled married couple during World War II.
Kurosawa with actor Masaki Suda during the filming of the 2024 action thriller Cloud. Photo: Nikkatsu
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South China Morning Post
12 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Japanese horror master Kiyoshi Kurosawa on making his first samurai film
Japanese horror master Kiyoshi Kurosawa will bring his signature edge-of-your-seat storytelling to a genre he has not yet tackled: the samurai movie. 'I do want to do it once, and it looks like it might be really happening, although things are still uncertain. I may finally be able to make my samurai film,' he says, adding he cannot give away much just yet. His upcoming project will not have sword-fight scenes or action-packed outdoor shots typical of samurai films, or jidaigeki. Instead, it will display the same creepy quiet narrative of his movies, where the action takes place almost claustrophobically – in this case, in a castle that just happens to be set in the samurai era. That concept alone should be enough to pique a movie lover's interest. Kurosawa recently received the Cut Above award for outstanding achievements in film at the 2025 Japan Cuts film festival in New York. This honour follows the Silver Lion award for best director, which he received at the 2020 Venice Film Festival for his movie Wife of a Spy , about a troubled married couple during World War II. Kurosawa with actor Masaki Suda during the filming of the 2024 action thriller Cloud. Photo: Nikkatsu
South China Morning Post
18 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
This week in PostMag: Hello Kitty creator Sanrio and a South African safari
One of the first things I ever loved was a Hello Kitty diary. Yes, there were stuffed animals (Snuffy the bear, RIP), sticker books and an American Girl doll or two, but it's the red Sanrio diary from 1993 that's somehow become a core memory. The lock, shaped like Hello Kitty's head, was cute but flimsy at best. Inside? Kindergarten confessionals, scrawled in shaky handwriting and even shakier grammar. Seeing a vintage Hello Kitty diary brings back memories for PostMag editor Cat Nelson. Photo: Etsy Things escalated in Grade 2 when Miki moved from Japan to our sleepy California town. With her came a parallel universe of pencil cases, stickers and characters beyond anything our Lisa Frank-addled brains had seen. Keroppi erasers, Badtz-Maru mechanical pencils, pastel My Melody folders. Sanrio wasn't just cute, and it wasn't just a toy company. It was as aspirational and worldly as an eight-year-old could get. So it's no wonder I devoured Sumnima Kandangwa's cover story this week, which explores Sanrio's staying power across generations . She charts the company's shape-shifting fandom, from a collector with a 1,000-piece Hello Kitty stash to Zoomers swearing allegiance to Kuromi's soft-punk aesthetic. And these characters aren't just merch. I was struck by this as our photographer, Jocelyn Tam, and I worked on the images for this piece. One young woman we photographed felt compelled to tell us, unprompted, that it might be a Hello Kitty charm hanging off her bag, but only because it was limited edition and her friends convinced her. Her real favourite is Kuromi. They may be cartoons, but loyalties run deep. Elsewhere, Bernice Chan profiles Aqua founder David Yeo, who started out cooking for friends in his Hong Kong flat and somehow ended up with a 25-year-old international restaurant empire. He's the kind of obsessive who can, apparently, taste the seasonal shift in a bag of rice. I'm impressed. And then there's the Karoo. Mark Eveleigh heads to South Africa's semi-arid desert for a walking safari, which is not something I plan to do any time soon but greatly enjoyed reading about. It's part travelogue, part nature thriller – lions, rewilding, the return of springbok. I thought of our Yellowstone feature from a few issues back and how the park has brought back nearly extinct wolves. Both reminders that not everything that disappears stays gone. While you might not find me on the Karoo any time soon, you may run into me at Montana. Associate editor Gavin Yeung chats with bartenders Lorenzo Antinori (Bar Leone) and Simone Caporale (Barcelona's Sips) about their new cocktail outpost on Hollywood Road. It's a throwback to 1970s and 80s Cuban culture – and it sounds delightful. See you there for a drink? Finally, August looms. Hong Kong might not stage a full European-style exodus, but the city does slip into silent mode and we're pausing issues on August 3, 17 and 31. That said, we're not very good at staying away. You can always find us online, and we'll be back on August 10 and 24 in print. I'm looking forward to it already.
South China Morning Post
2 days ago
- South China Morning Post
2 films by star Hong Kong directors Ronny Yu and Tsui Hark you probably haven't seen
Here we look at two relatively unseen works from the star Hong Kong directors. The Occupant (1984) 'Long before he scared Hollywood with The Bride of Chucky and Freddy vs. Jason, director Ronny Yu Yan-tai made this spooky horror hit for Cinema City, a suspenseful mystery that is high on atmosphere and style,' noted the Hong Kong Film Archive in its programme note on the film. Play The Occupant is a very lightweight ghost story, a potpourri of ghostly horror, romance and comedy delivered in equal measures in a carefully understated style. The slim storyline is acceptable even though there are holes, and a top-flight cast of Sally Yeh Chian-wen, Chow Yun-fat and even kung fu legend Lo Lieh in a thoroughly thespian role delivers so much charm that it overrides the film's faults. Comedian Raymond Wong Pak-ming – one of Cinema City's co-founders – is acceptably funny, too, even though his role as an annoying and nerdy would-be Casanova was designed to irritate. The story – and the mystery – is so slim it is almost non-existent. Yeh's Canadian resident is writing a university thesis on Chinese paranormal activities and, by chance, moves into a haunted house when she visits Hong Kong to do some research.
