KimStim Acquires Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Serpent’s Path Remake for Summer Release

That every Kiyoshi Kurosawa project of late—some of which are 45 minutes long and originated as an NFT—can get a theatrical release makes especially odd the stranding of Serpent’s Path, a wholly deserving remake of his 1998 film. (Even that feel-bad triumph’s restoration got a proper run while the new film stayed offshore.) We shall wonder no more and complain no further, and are thrilled to exclusively reveal that KimStim will open Serpent’s Path this summer at the IFC Center before, one assumes, a North American expansion.

Damien Bonnard (Poor Things) and Ko Shibasaki (The Boy and the Heron) lead the film that co-stars Hidetoshi Nishijima (Drive My Car), Mathieu Amalric, and Claire Denis regular Grégoire Colin. Those who know Kurosawa’s original will find themselves familiar with the foundational premise, then surprised by its unique avenues—not least some reflection of the director’s own fish-out-of-water role. As the first go-round was complemented by Eyes of the Spider—a project made with overlapping cast, crew, and premise—it sometimes seems Serpent’s Path is less a remake than the third in a series. (Kurosawa at least told me he considers it more in his creative spirit.) But I’ll let you see the movie and decide for yourself.

“Kiyoshi Kurosawa revisits and reimagines his own 1998 thriller in this haunting French-language adaptation of Serpent’s Path, transforming a revenge story into a chilling meditation on grief, guilt, and moral decay. Relocating the action from Tokyo to the bleak outskirts of Paris, the film follows a bereaved father (Damien Bonnard) who embarks on a labyrinthine quest for vengeance against a shadowy child-trafficking organization known as ‘The Circle,’ aided by the enigmatic and unnervingly composed Sayoko, played with hypnotic ambiguity by Ko Shibasaki. Expanding upon the original’s psychological terrain while retaining its eerie inevitability, Kurosawa crafts a masterclass in atmosphere and existential dread, proving once again why he remains one of cinema’s great architects of unease.”