"Chime" Food and cooking, space and movement, the collapse of the world - a look at some keywords in director Kurosawa Kiyoshi's new feature film

Index

• "Chime" launched as a new initiative
• The Eeriness of the Cooking Class Setting
• A man walking from one space to another
• The collapse of the world and the moment of awakening

"Chime" launched as a new initiative

Roadstead, a media distribution platform, launched on April 12, 2024. Its first original work, director Kiyoshi Kurosawa's new feature film "Chime" (24), premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival and was first sold on Roadstead. After a period of time, it was screened at the Stranger cinema in Kikugawa this summer. It is scheduled for distribution throughout Japan and around the world. While this is an unprecedented sales and screening style, 2024 is poised to be a monumental year, with a full lineup of Kurosawa's new works, starting with "Chime," followed by his self-remake " Serpent's Path " (due for release on June 14), and " Cloud " (due for release in September).

In recent years, Kurosawa has moved away from the horror genre and has taken on themes of various forms of " love," including " The End of the Journey, the Beginning of the World " (2019), " Wife of a Spy " (2020), and "13 Days I Believed in Him" (22/part of "Modern Love Tokyo: Various Forms of Love"). However, his new film, "Chime," is a pure horror film that pursues nothing but fear and ominousness, a refreshingly strange work packed with Kurosawa's playful spirit.

"Chime" ©Roadstead

The protagonist is Matsuoka (Yoshioka Mutsuo), who works at a cooking school. He teaches his students how to cook every day, but there is one student, Tashiro (Kohinata Seiichi), who seems to be acting strangely. While the other students imitate Matsuoka's work while chatting harmoniously, Tashiro always stands alone in a separate place, repeating movements that are out of place with the others. Eventually, Tashiro confides in Matsuoka that he always hears a chime-like sound. Furthermore, Tashiro says that he has half a machine implanted in his head, and continues to behave suspiciously. Eventually, Tashiro causes a terrifying incident, and from this point on, Matsuoka's daily life begins to slowly go awry.

The Eeriness of the Cooking Class Setting