Séance (2004)

Interesting facts

Séance is a 2000 Japanese television horror film directed and co-written by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, based on the 1961 novel Séance on a Wet Afternoon by Mark McShane. The novel had previously been adapted in a 1964 British film of the same name.

Production

Director and co-writer Kiyoshi Kurosawa was approached by the Kansai Telecasting Corporation with the idea of adapting Mark McShane's novel Seance on a Wet Afternoon. In a 2005 interview, Kurosawa explained, "What interested me about the narrative story in the book was that it featured a ghost, in other words, a dead human being, as well as an average couple who had been living very normal lives who, in fact, became criminals.

Though the film was specifically made for Japanese television, Kurosawa shot it on film. In a 2001 interview, he recalled, "I was actually hoping for film festivals to ask me to come show this film and thankfully that was what happened.

On the casting of Kōji Yakusho (who has appeared in many of Kurosawa's films) Kurosawa commented, "First of all, I think he is a great actor. He can play any type of character. He can be a regular guy, but he can also become a monster, a person of whom you don't know what he's thinking. Secondly, he is the same age as me. So our points of view are alike. We're on the same level as human beings.

The film was shot in two weeks, on what Kurosawa describes as a low budget (around $200,000 to $300,000 US dollars).

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