HKIFF Directors Series: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Famed Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa has won countless awards throughout his long career, and is perhaps best known for repeatedly forcing fans of his horror films to sleep with the lights on. He appeared at this year’s HKIFF as one of four auteurs at the helm of “Beautiful 2013”; a collection of short films made specifically for this year’s event. Christopher Mellen sat down with him to discuss his origins in cinema, this project and how his approach to filmmaking has evolved.
HK Magazine: Tell me, how did you get into the film industry?
Kiyoshi Kurosawa: When I was very young, I loved watching films. I made some films with an 8mm camera when I was in university and I don’t remember how or when, but it became my work. In the 1970’s or 80’s the film industry in Japan was not that popular or very rewarding, but university students who filmed with an 8mm camera had a chance to present themselves. I think it was lucky that I was able to join the film industry when I did.
HK: You write, direct and act. Which is your favorite?
KK: Actually, the most interesting part of the filmmaking process is before the screenwriting is done. When I have the inspiration in my mind—“this would be a very interesting story”—and put it into words, I have very little understanding of how it will end up on-screen. When it becomes a movie, it’s actually quite a different thing. The background music and the sound effects will be put in, and then the whole movie is completed and played, and it’s completely different from what I originally thought in those first moments in my head. However, the completed movie has many other interesting facets that I didn’t think of in the first place. I think this gap is what makes filmmaking interesting.
HK: Your contribution to “Beautiful 2013” was a love story between a weak man and a strong woman. Why did you pick this kind of narrative?
KK: I was told to make a film that had “beautiful” as its theme. The first thought that came into my mind was that maybe a strong woman is seen as beautiful. From a man’s point of view, a strong woman can be very attractive, but on the other hand, if a woman sees another woman that is strong she may think that the strong woman had to defeat other enemies. So, from the female perspective, this strong woman may not be beautiful at all. I thought that idea was interesting.
HK: I want to ask you about your fight scenes in “Beautiful 2013.” There is one in particular that was very raw, and didn’t look edited at all.
KK: Some of the scenes were edited but most were presented as raw. I wanted to present the scene as it actually happened. This was my aim in the first place. This is a very short film, and because the time was limited, I wanted to put more focus on the action side instead of telling about the woman’s past.
HK: On that note, the woman’s past is not a conventional one. Where did that idea come from, and what challenges did you have in communicating that to the audience?
KK: The situation for this woman is that she is some kind of creature that comes from the ocean floor, and she was very strong as a monster and has become very strong as a woman. However, it would take too much time for me to explain what she is and where she comes from in the short film. So, I just wanted people to know that she is not a normal human being, and that’s the main set-up for the story. By using a very short period of time and maybe using only one or two sentences, it leaves a greater impact on the audience.
HK: In an interview in 2007, you said it was hard for you to come up with movies or to continue making movies. Do you still feel that way?
KK: Around ten years ago, I started taking on a lot of projects. I would do three in one year. When I finished one film, I had to start the next one. I realized that when I finish one film, I have to follow up with many different things on the same film I just finished, like awards ceremonies and interviews. It was not easy to delete it from my mind and start on a new film. It’s different now. I no longer focus on the film I want to make, but what kind of film I can take at the moment, and I think this is the right way to think in order to make a smooth movie. From the experience of this last short film [Beautiful 2013], the experience I had was as I said before: the story I had in mind in the very beginning turned out to be a totally different thing at the end. So now I don’t focus on wanting to take this or that movie, but I focus on being able to take a story that I can film in this or that way, because the completion of the film is more or less the same as the story I first had in my mind. When I do it that way, it leads to a better quality film.