Serpent’s Path / Chime

When math teacher Nijima (Sho Aikawa, "The Eel") is called upon to avenge the murder of a yakuza's daughter, he will find that revenge has set him on a "Serpent's Path."

Laura's Review: B+

After his 1997 breakout film, "Cure," director Kiyoshi Kurosawa made two low budget, direct-to-video films with the same theme, both starring Sho Aikawa. The first of these, "Serpent's Path," written by "The Ring's" Hiroshi Takahashi, has been reissued by Janus films in a 4K restoration, accompanied by the directors 2024 short "Chime."

The film plunges us right into the kidnapping which begins a twisted spiral of revenge. As Miyashita (Teruyuki Kagawa) watches a video of a young girl, assuring Emi (Ayami Oda) 'that it won't be long now,' his coconspirator, Nijima stops the car to make a call at a pay phone, pretending to have a delivery for their target, Otsuki (Yurei Yanagi), with an illegible address. Arriving at the man's door, Nijimi forces his way in, Miyashita following to tase the tackled man. They'll bag him up and take him to a warehouse (one of Kurosawa's favored locations) where he'll be chained to a wall, forced to watch a video of Emi on a swing while a voiceover relates the horrific details of her death. Immediately afterwards, we will see Nijima teaching his math class, writing complex mathematical equations on a blackboard which a girl the same age as Emi (Kana Satô), his prodigy, is able to expand upon, a 'conversation' between the two that recurs throughout the film.

Back at the warehouse, insisting he had nothing to do with Emi's murder, Otsuki is nonetheless tortured, denied access to a bathroom, then hosed down, served food on a metal tray which is turned over onto the floor. Otsuki will tell the men that it was Hiyama (Shirô Shimomoto) who killed Emi and that the 'bad golfer' who always drives his balls into the trees could be found on the golf course. The men make their way to the course, capturing Hiyama as he hunts for his ball, but are seen by Ms. Cripple (Daisuke Iijima), his enforcer with a lethal cane. Hiyama is chained next to Otsuki and given the same treatment, Otsuki denying he fingered him. Then something surprising happens. Nijima talks to the two men separately from Miyashita, telling them he doesn't care who killed Emi and that if they agree on targeting someone else and tell Miyashita they will lead him to this person, they will be able to escape.

Kurosawa's film is made even more twisted by his bizarre tonal shifts, the actions of the yakuza and the two men hunting them almost comical at times despite the seriously despicable nature of the crime driving the action. That is, until, we finally learn what Nijima's game is, the man's motivation mysterious until the last act when Kurosawa's tone turns chillingly grim. Sho Aikawa, exhibiting a Beat Takashi level of cool, keeps us guessing throughout and we see harbingers of Kurosawa's future work, his factory shootout climax here echoed later in his most recent, "Cloud." "Serpent's Path" is one twisty little psychological thriller told in a compact 85 minutes.

Kurosawa remade this film, again titled "Serpent's Path," in 2024 as a French language film set in Paris, the same year he made the 1998's rerelease companion short "Chime," but that film is much more of a piece with "Cure" and "Pulse," even as its antagonist is also a teacher and a young girl is murdered. In "Chime," which Kurosawa also wrote, culinary teacher Matsuoka (Mutsuo Yoshioka, "Cloud") deals with a student, Toshiro (Seiichi Kohinata), whose bizarre behavior is making the rest of the class uncomfortable, but which Matusoka largely ignores. The young man continues to relentlessly chop onions long after Matsuoka tells him not to mince them too finely, then becomes catatonic in front of his frying pan as they overcook. 'Can't you hear it?' he asks his teacher about the chimes he says are ringing in his head.

Matsuoka leaves class and goes on an interview to become the chef at Bistro de Ville, touting his experience with French cuisine beginning when he was in elementary school, but when he's asked if he would continue teaching, he says no, an answer clearly at odds with what he'd said in a prior interview and something the restaurant owners do not look favorably upon. Back in class Toshiro's oddness escalates, the young man announcing that half his brain has been replaced by a machine which controls him via the chimes he hears. Sensing disbelief from his audience, Toshiro offers to 'take it out,' grabbing a butcher knife and plunging it into his neck.

Of course Matsuoka will begin to hear those chimes, just as Kurosawa spread hypnotic murder in "Cure" and Internet ghosts in "Pulse" and he will use his signature muffling and elevation of sound, most amusingly with Matsuoka's wife's wrangling of aluminum cans for recycling. A detective senses something is up when one of Matsuoka's students, Akemi (Hana Amano), goes missing shortly after Toshiro's horrific public suicide and the owners of Bistro de Ville will note their applicant's behavior is even more manic and self-absorbed. Cinematographer Kôichi Furuya ("The Ozu Diaries") navigates cramped spaces until one beautiful overhead shot of Matsuoka navigating his way away from the scene of a crime.

Janus Films released a 4K restoration of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's 1998 "Serpent's Path" with his 2024 short "Chime" in NY on 3/27/26. The double bill will be featured at Cambridge's Brattle Theater as part of their Kiyoshi Kurosawa x4 series beginning on 5/15/26.  Janus has confirmed that "Chime" will be a theatrical only experience which will not be made available for streaming, digital or on physical media.