Official synopsis: Riko, a beauty salon receptionist, notices her friend Shu-fen’s strange social media posts. As horrific deaths occur, she travels to Taiwan and unravels community horrors and desire with her ex and Shu-fen’s sister.
Prolific Japanese genre-film writer/director Kenichi Ugana — heck, he fully deserves the title auteur at this point — is having a busy year on the festival circuit. After Fantasia Best Asian Feature: Bronze winner I Fell In Love With A Z-Grade Director In Brooklyn, a surprising rom-com and valentine to independent filmmaking, he now unleashes on audiences a chilling J-horror–flavored supernatural take on the dangers of social media with The Curse.
Ugana knows his way around fright-fare tales, as proven by his previous body of work (see below, if you are not already familiar with his oeuvre). With Japanese/Taiwanese coproduction The Curse, he takes the J-horror tropes of onryō (basically, harmful ghosts) and curses spread through modern technology, and puts his own stamp on the proceedings as he examines how social media can be harmful to some while celebrating — often through highly exaggerated and even fictitious claims — how wonderful one’s life is. He also adds a new perspective on those tropes by setting some of the action in Taiwan, where the film emphasizes that curses are taken more seriously.
The Curse is plentiful with eerie tension and gruesome set pieces, and the third act is a corker with its wild reveals and action. Yukino Kaizu gives a fine lead performance, heading up a solid cast that also includes Yu, Shiho, Mimi Shao, and Ray Fan.
After the philosophical science fiction horror of his 2021 Extraneous Matter – Complete Edition, Ugana crafted 2023’s Evil Dead-inspired demonic gorefest Visitors: Complete Edition and the humorous stalk ‘n’ slash/romance mash-up Love Will Tear Us Apart, then 2024 saw him release rock-fueled look at the creative process The Gesuidouz and the feature We Are Aliens (which I have not yet seen), and besides this year’s I Fell In Love With A Z-Grade Director In Brooklyn and The Curse, he has yet another 2025 shocker on the way with Incomplete Chairs. If you are new to the wild world of Kenichi Ugana, The Curse is a fine place to start.
