Sightlines · reception
How Serpent's Path was received
1998 · Kiyoshi Kurosawa · Serpent's Path on Sightlines
The arc
Made fast and cheap as straight-to-video V-cinema, it was barely seen outside Japan for years while Cure made Kurosawa an international name; it has since been reappraised as one of his leanest, meanest works, with restorations and retrospective screenings finally putting it in front of Western audiences.
What’s debated
The perennial fan debate is a double one: Serpent's Path or its back-to-back twin Eyes of the Spider, and 1998 original or 2024 remake?
Its footprint
Its strangest afterlife: Kurosawa remade his own film in France in 2024 (with Kō Shibasaki), a rare self-remake that sent curious viewers scrambling back to the scrappy V-cinema original.
Where it stands
A deep-cut badge of honor among Kurosawa devotees — the 'you've seen Cure, but have you seen this?' pick from his V-cinema years.
Did you know? It was shot back-to-back in 1998 with a companion film, Eyes of the Spider — both star Kurosawa regular Show Aikawa as a man named Nijima — and the script is by Hiroshi Takahashi, the screenwriter of Ring.