Sightlines · reception

How Séance was received

2004 · Kiyoshi Kurosawa · Séance on Sightlines

The arc

Barely released outside Japan — it was a made-for-TV movie that trickled out to festivals and DVD years after airing — it's since been adopted by J-horror devotees as the 'hidden' Kiyoshi Kurosawa, routinely name-checked alongside Cure and Pulse by people who want you to know they've gone deeper.

What’s debated

The perennial fight: is this minor Kurosawa or secretly top-tier Kurosawa — can a modest TV production really sit on the same shelf as Cure and Pulse?

Its footprint

It lives mostly as a cinephile handshake: the Kurosawa film you recommend after someone finishes Cure and Pulse, and a favorite talking point for fans of the 1964 British film it shares a source novel with.

Where it stands

A cult deep-cut in the J-horror boom — beloved-but-underseen, with a steady 'most underrated Kurosawa' reputation on Letterboxd.

Did you know? It was made for Japanese television (Kansai TV) and adapts Mark McShane's novel Séance on a Wet Afternoon — the same book behind Bryan Forbes' acclaimed 1964 British film — with Kurosawa regulars Kōji Yakusho and Jun Fubuki as the couple.