Righteous vengeance never seemed so serpentine
Sneak Preview Screening: "The Serpent's Path (Hebi no Michi)"
followed by a Q&A with legendary director Kiyoshi Kurosawa
and actress Ko Shibasaki

Wednesday, June 5 at 6:00 pm*
*Please note early start time.

In French with English subtitles only (no Japanese)
France, Japan, Belgium, Luxembourg 2024 113 minutes


Attention: "Due to limited seating, FCCJ members (and spouse members) will be limited to one guest only."

Directed by: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Written by: Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Aurélien Ferenczi, adapted from an original story by Hiroshi Takahashi
Produced by: David Gauquié, Julien Deris, Takeo Kodera
Starring: Ko Shibasaki, Damien Bonnard, Mathieu Almaric, Grégoire Colin,
Hidetoshi Nishijima, Vimala Pons, Slimane Dazi, Munetaka Aoki

Film courtesy of KADOKAWA

Twenty-six years ago, Kiyoshi Kurosawa directed a low-budget yakuza revenge film for Daiei's V-cinema video label. The auteur always felt the story (by the writer of "Ring" and "Ring 2") would be worth revisiting, if he ever got a chance to remake one of his own films. In the ensuing years, Kurosawa would become one of the most critically lauded, commercially successful filmmakers in Japanese history, attracting international acclaim with award-winning psychological thrillers that exposed the horror behind the mundane.

Then, after making his first French-language coproduction, "Daguerreotype" (2016), he was approached about making another. The director made no secret of his fondness for "The Serpent's Path." Working with leading French journalist and author Aurélien Ferenczi, he switched the gender of the original protagonist, moved the setting to Paris, and incorporated pressing social issues like the dangers of religious cults and the trafficking of young children.

As "The Serpent's Path" opens, freelance journalist Albert (Bonnard) and a Paris-based Japanese doctor, Sayoko (Shibasaki), break into a residential building and take hostage a seemingly friendly middle-aged man (Almaric). They chain him to the wall in an abandoned building, accuse him of murdering Albert's 8-year-old daughter, and only gradually realize that they may have the wrong man. To discover the shocking truth about the actual killer, they will take further hostages and Albert, at least, will grapple with his increasing level of brutality. But he is bent on revenge, while she… she has vowed to help him, but Sayoko is an unlikely accomplice and her intentions remain unclear.

As Kurosawa notes, "A drama that is triggered by the simple motive of revenge must have a structure in which it goes through many hesitations and complications, progressively overstepping the boundaries of morality, common sense, right and wrong, and finally ending up in nihilism."

Please join us for this sneak preview of the blackly humorous, twisty-turny "The Serpent's Path" before the film's Japan release on June 14.

For more (in Japanese): https://movies.kadokawa.co.jp/hebinomichi/

Writer-director KIYOSHI KUROSAWA made his commercial film debut in 1983 and earned a cult following with his 1992 "The Guard from Underground." In 1997, his first of many collaborations with Koji Yakusho, "Cure," brought him greater international attention, and his fame was burnished further when "Bright Future" was a Palme d'Or nominee at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. In 2008, his "Tokyo Sonata" won the Prize of the Un Certain Regard at Cannes, and he won the Best Director Award in the 2015 Un Certain Regard for "Journey to the Shore." In 2020, Kurosawa won the Silver Lion for Best Direction at the Venice International Film Festival for his film "Wife of a Spy." He has mentored leading filmmakers as a professor at Tokyo University of the Arts, including Ryosuke Hamaguchi, who co-wrote the script for Kurosawa's "Wife of a Spy."

Actress KO SHIBASAKI made an international splash with her villainess role in "Battle Royale" (2000), and won her first acting awards for "Go" (2001). She cemented her appeal in "Crying Out Love in the Center of the World" (2004) and has demonstrated her versatility in a wide range of genres, including the English- language action-fantasy "47 Ronin" (2013), with Keanu Reeves and Hiroyuki Sanada. Shibasaki is also active on television and has been a popular singer for over 20 years.

Attention: "Due to limited seating, FCCJ members (and spouse members) will be limited to one guest only."
Please make your reservations at the FCCJ Reception Desk 03 3211-3161 or register from https://www.fccj.or.jp/.
All film screenings are private, noncommercial events primarily for FCCJ members and their guests.

- Karen Severns, Film Committee