Kiyoshi Kurosawa is a director who has always had bigger ambitions than the horror genre, but his complete mastery of all things spooky made him first and foremost a scare film director. The limits of the genre chafe him and while his flat-out scary films like PULSE and THE CURE are terrific, it's the movies where he tries to do something new like DOPPELGANGER, BRIGHT FUTURE and SEANCE where you can see just how good he is. Of course, these aren't really the filmography faves for most fans because they're all advertised as horror films but aren't interested in delivering horror movie goodness.

For the past year, Kiyoshi Kurosawa has been working on a drama, TOKYO SONATA, that has nothing to do with horror except for horror of the emotional/existential type and from what I've heard it's turned out pretty great. The original plot synopsis is about a family in Tokyo who are falling apart - salaryman dad hides the fact that he's lost his job, his son hides the fact that he wants to play the piano, everyone has secrets - but the latest reports I've heard say that the movie goes far beyond that original synopsis and has become something truly great. Now, this may be a lot of bunk, but with a cast consisting of Koji Yakusho, Kyoko Koizumi (HANGING GARDEN, SURVIVE STYLE 5+, TOKYO TOWER) and Teruyuki Kagawa (SWAY, THE GO MASTER, MEMORIES OF MATSUKO) I've got high hopes for Kurosawa's latest, especially after the double punch of LOFT (disappointing) and RETRIBUTION (well-done, but not breaking any new ground).