Hard to believe I haven’t seen a new Kiyoshi Kurosawa movie since the great Tokyo Sonata. Starting to catch up, but I hope that’s worth doing. I enjoy a slow-boil movie, but this one just kinda stayed lukewarm. Interesting stylistic choices for a 2013 ghost movie – from a director who has sometimes over-relied on horrid digital effects, this uses none. Ghosts appear as regular people, no indications of who is living or dead, and their appearances or other otherworldly happenings are signaled by slow lighting changes.

Lonely piano teacher Mizuki (Eri Fukatsu of Atlanta Boogie) is visited by her long-missing husband Yûsuke (Tadanobu Asano of Bright Future and Last Life in the Universe) who explains that he drowned at sea three years ago. He says it was a long trip back to her, and people helped him along the way, and he’d like them to revisit those people together.

At Shimakage’s house, pre-collapse:

Yûsuke in teacher mode:

First is Mr. Shimakage, who is dead and does not realize this. Yûsuke’s visit with Mizuki brings back memories of his wife, which allow him to let go and disappear, his house becoming decrepit overnight. Next, the Jinnai family, who are alive but have a sad ghostly relative psychically tied to their piano. Then Mizuki meets Tomoko, with whom Yûsuke was having an affair while alive. Then at a village where Yûsuke had been a teacher, Mizuki briefly meets her dead father, and their host Kaoru briefly meets her dead husband (who was flown in from a darker, more interesting movie).

Mizuki and the Dead Father:

I’m pleased that a shy Japanese piano teacher would listen to Sonic Youth:

M. D’Angelo:

I’d planned to write at least a few words about Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s almost surreally boring Journey to the Shore, which multiple critics here have dubbed Journey to the Snore. Trouble is, just thinking about the film makes me nod off, making it difficult to formulate any thoughts.