Pulse director Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Nov 7, 2005

Pulse is another eerie Japanese horror flick that tries to make sure you turn off your computer and go get some fresh air sometimes. In Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s film a website, which at first appears to be merely a scary hoax with an irresistible marketing ploy, but then it turns out to be run by a sinister and deadly force.

Check out the official website for Pulse

Daniel Robert Epstein: This film came out in 2001 in Japan, why has it taken so long to get here?

Kiyoshi Kurosawa: I don’t know why it’s taken so long, but I’m delighted that it is. Not many Japanese films are released in America so it’s very exciting.

DRE:

What made you pick teenagers as your main characters?

KK:

I wanted to portray young people because they interested me, even outside of the horror. Also in the context of portraying a society that’s falling apart, in a science fiction setting, usually you’ll find scientists, police and politicians. Adults weighing in on the nature of the calamity but I intentionally wanted to exclude them and limit it to young people. To see how a crumbling society would look in their eyes.

DRE:

Are you on the internet a lot yourself?

KK:

Not constantly or obsessively, but I use it in the course of my daily life and depend on it for work.

DRE:

What are you obsessed with?

KK:

For the last ten years all I do obsessively is make movies, screen them, have interviews and take them to film festivals.

DRE:

I interviewed Takashi Miike and he said the reason he makes so many films is because of financial reasons. Is that the reason you make three or four films a year?

KK:

Yes up to a point. The director’s fee is nowhere near what it would be for a Hollywood film so you have to keep on making lots of films. But I think Miike makes too many movies.

DRE:

A lot of the Japanese use or what someone feels about contemporary Japanese is that they use a lot of “Owarinaki Nichijo-wo Ikiro'' (literally, every day is the same).

KK:

I have heard that is kind of the contemporary terminally mundane Japanese existence.

DRE:

I thought that that was what you were trying to portray in this film. A lot of the Japanese films seem to portray life as boring until the horror happens.

KK:

I don’t know about boring before the horror, but I think what you’ll find is that what is considered a safe way to live your life is that you have a daily routine that is headed towards a foreseeable future and feels very safe. But what happens in my movies is that a foreign element comes into that daily routine, whether it’s a tree or a jellyfish and that changes your course.

DRE:

A lot of these films also seem to work around loneliness and hallucinations as a result of that. Are you lonely?

KK:

I think that human beings are fundamentally lonely, but if you can have someone near you and build a relationship that’s a way of dealing with it. In essence, Pulse is about lonely youth but it’s also about them recognizing how important it is to be engaged with someone else.

DRE:

But not through the internet?

KK:

Right. What is interesting is that yes I do communicate on the internet but what we’re really talking about is “When can I see you next?” or “I’ll see you in New York.” I think the more I use the internet, the more I see people.

DRE:

I know that for The Ring they filmed the girl who played Sadako walking backwards and then ran it forwards so that it was all weird looking. The woman in the black dress is even eerier. How did you create that?

KK:

She actually is a dancer so she trained her body to move like that. I didn’t use any tricks. I’ve known her for years and we’ve been scheming to make her move more evilly than Sadako. That wasn’t an accident.

DRE:

It was interesting that the victims in Pulse, rather than them being killed. They end up committing suicide. What intrigued you about that choice?

KK:

Now we’re getting into the other great theme of Pulse which is that death actually is very close by. We tend to live in complete denial about how close death can be. It’s actually very simple, very nearby and not so difficult to accomplish very much like it is on the battlefield of war.

DRE:

but I read that you started out in the movie business making pornographic films. How did that lead by to making films that aren’t pornographic?

KK:

It’s actually a very typical debut for a Japanese director. For instance, the director of Shall we Dance Masayuki Suo, his first film was pornography. In Japan it’s not at all unusual or strange but actually the way the industry is structured.

DRE:

It’s certainly not unusual for horror filmmakers in America to also make pornography and just by co-incidence, Wes Craven who was working on the Pulse remake, his first film was a porno film. Have you been involved at all with the American remake?

KK:

No, unfortunately I know nothing. I’ve heard rumors but I have no information and it seems to be going along with no relationship or involvement with me.

DRE:

Were you compensated for it?

KK:

Unfortunately not really. The producers or the studios have all the rights, so there’s nothing I can do about it.

DRE:

Hideo Nakata did the American Ring sequel. Would you want to do an American horror movie or an American version of Pulse?

KK:

I’d be interested in making a film in the United States but the more I hear about how movies are made in Hollywood, I don’t know if I’m really up for it. They don’t give the director as much freedom. I prefer freedom to money.

DRE:

Did you see Takashi Shimizu’s American The Grudge or Hideo Nakata’s Ring 2?

KK:

I saw Ring 2 but The Grudge I didn’t see though I visited the set because they shot it in Japan.

DRE:

What are you working on now?

KK:

I made a film called Loft last year, it hasn’t been released in Japan yet but hopefully it will be released this year. Also I’ve finished writing a movie that I hope to shoot in the fall.

DRE:

Are they horror films?

KK:

The next film is a genuine article horror movie.

DRE:

What do you have nightmares about?

KK:

I have very boring nightmares. I often have a nightmare about being on a movie set and I go “Ok ready for the next scene and I open the script and there is a scene I didn’t know written there.”

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck

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