Cure

Masterpiece. Amazing performance by Kōji Yakusho and Masato Hagiwara. The cinematography is really good and the long shots build tension and really make you uncomfortable. Kiyoshi Kurosawa directed this really well. Everyone should watch this atleast once. Spoilers below. It starts off with a murder done by a blunt weapon which is seemingly connected to other murders which happened in the past few weeks. This isn't a who did it type of film, it's a film about the human psyche. It takes us on a journey about this detective(Takabe) whose wife(Fumie) is suffering from amnesia. The detective's wife is a burden to him. He comes home late at night after a tiring day of work and has to look for his wife in the city because she got lost but what other choice does he have? The killer(Mamiya) offers a "cure", he releases your burdens, makes you free. We see him do this to the victims throughout the film, first with the unhappy husband then the policeman who didn't like his partner then the nurse who wanted to become a surgeon. Takabe's "cure" was his wife dying. He purposefully doesn't shoot Mamiya until after he had made the cross with his hand so his wife dies. We see him at the end seeming happier, like a burden is lifted off him. The final shot is one of the most haunting final shots in film. The waitress picks up the knife ready to kill which I think shows Takabe replaced Mamiya.