Jessa Crispin: Penance (series)
Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa • Drama • With Kyoko Koizumi, Teruyuki Kagawa, Yu Aoi • 2014 • 300 minutes
Japanese master of suspense Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s eerie, intense psychological thriller Penance (Shokuzai) unfolds on a sleepy small town playground, when a mysterious stranger approaches a group of young friends, then kidnaps and brutally murders one of the girls. Wracked with grief, the victim’s unhinged mother Asako (Kyoko Koizumi) demands that the shaken survivors identify the killer or face a penance of her choosing. Growing up in the shadow of this tragic debt, each of the four girls cultivates a warped survival mechanism – avoidance, desperation, fear and obsession.
A disturbing, sensitively helmed chronicle of post-traumatic stress from a female perspective, Penance offers Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s trademark creepy twists as well as a subtle commentary on Japanese society and gender expectations. This gripping long-form serial drama highlights a new facet of renowned auteur Kurosawa (PULSE, CURE, CHARISMA) and features absorbing performances from a stellar line-up of award-winning, up-and-coming young actresses.
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Author Selects: Jessa Crispin
Welcome to OVID’s “Author Selects” series, where we invite an author to select a film on OVID and explain why they think you should watch it.
In our fourth installment, we welcome writer Jessa Crispin to discuss Kiyoshi Kurosawa's series, Penance. Crispin is the editor of The Culture We Deserve... -
Penance: Episode 1
Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa • Drama • With Kyoko Koizumi, Teruyuki Kagawa, Yu Aoi • 2014 • 75 minutes
The French Doll : Tragedy strikes when Emili is shockingly murdered by a mysterious stranger. The other four girls present at the scene of the crime - Sae, Maki, Akiko and Yuka - are unable to ...
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Penance: Episode 2
Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa • Drama • With Kyoko Koizumi, Teruyuki Kagawa, Yu Aoi • 2014 • 50 minutes
Emergency PTA Meeting : Maki is now a relentlessly strict teacher at a elementary school and trains in self-defense techniques in her off-time to combat her overall sense of helplessness. When ...
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Penance: Episode 3
Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa • Drama • With Kyoko Koizumi, Teruyuki Kagawa, Yu Aoi • 2014 • 50 minutes
Brother and Sister Bear : Akiko has withdrawn from society and lives a reclusive life at home. But things change when her brother Koji moves back home from Tokyo with his wife and step-daughter...
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Penance: Episode 4
Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa • Drama • With Kyoko Koizumi, Teruyuki Kagawa, Yu Aoi • 2014 • 50 minutes
Ten Months Ten Days : When Yuka was a child, her mother always favored Yuka’s sickly older sister Mayu. Now the successful proprietor of a flower shop, Yuka is still consumed by jealousy. When ...
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Penance: Episode 5
Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa • Drama • With Kyoko Koizumi, Teruyuki Kagawa, Yu Aoi • 2014 • 75 minutes
Fifteen years since the murder of her daughter, Asako is still overtaken with grief and resentment. One day she receives a vital new clue as to the identity of Emili’s killer and sets out to fi...
