CULTJAPAN!

Cure is a 1997 psychological thriller/horror directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa and starring Koji Yakusho and Masato Hagiwara. Police detective Kenichi Takabe is investigating a series of bizarre murders. Though each victim is killed the same way, with an X mark carved into their chests, the perpetrator seems to be different every time. In every case the murderer is caught close to the scene of the crime, and though they readily confess to committing the murder, they often have no motive and cannot adequately explain what drove them to kill.

Eventually Takabe catches up with a man named Mamiya. Mamiya appears to have extreme short-term memory loss; he is constantly confused about what day it is, where he is, and what his name is. It is revealed that Mamiya is the common thread between the murders, as each person he comes in contact with seems to commit a murder shortly thereafter. Takabe catches Mamiya and finds that he used to be a student who studied hypnosis and mesmerism, but he cannot understand how Mamiya is able to convince strangers to become murderers. Though he has trouble believing it himself, Takabe comes to realize that not only does Mamiya have no memory problems, he is also a master hypnotist, able to control people’s actions by simply exposing them to repetitive sounds or the flame from a lighter.

Mamiya also finds Takabe fascinating, possibly because Takabe appears to be immune to Mamiya’s suggestive powers. The more Takabe researches Mamiya, the more he feels that he himself might be on the verge of losing his mind. When Mamiya escapes, Takabe tracks him to a house in the wilderness and shoots him.

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