In general I'm a big admirer of Kiyoshi Kurosawa. I thought his films Cure and Charisma were both excellent, all the more so for leaving lots of room to the viewer for interpretation and ambiguity.
Unfortunately, this film isn't one of his better works. It seems rather like the director's personal remake of Ring(u), covering many of the same themes of technological angst and ghost stories. It even has the now archetypal figures in white with long black hair. The plot is muddled and meandering, and while the plots of Charisma and Cure were also muddled, it seemed as though those films actually had a central idea that they were aiming for. Pulse just seems like a mishmash of early 21st-century Japanese horror tropes, fused clumsily to the apocalyptic themes common in the nineties and before (as seen in copious anime from, say, Barefoot Gen onwards). Kurosawa does try to impose some structure on the movie with visual motifs and his usual excellent command of atmosphere, but it isn't enough to keep the movie interesting without a strong story to back it up.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa is definitely a director worth watching. I wouldn't say the same for this film, although if you're already interested in Kurosawa it is worth tracking down (Cure - or Kyua - would be a better movie for newbies to start with, though). It is, at least, better than the noodling Doppelganger, which blends Pulse's fuzzy purposelessness with some poorly executed light comedy.
Unfortunately, this film isn't one of his better works. It seems rather like the director's personal remake of Ring(u), covering many of the same themes of technological angst and ghost stories. It even has the now archetypal figures in white with long black hair. The plot is muddled and meandering, and while the plots of Charisma and Cure were also muddled, it seemed as though those films actually had a central idea that they were aiming for. Pulse just seems like a mishmash of early 21st-century Japanese horror tropes, fused clumsily to the apocalyptic themes common in the nineties and before (as seen in copious anime from, say, Barefoot Gen onwards). Kurosawa does try to impose some structure on the movie with visual motifs and his usual excellent command of atmosphere, but it isn't enough to keep the movie interesting without a strong story to back it up.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa is definitely a director worth watching. I wouldn't say the same for this film, although if you're already interested in Kurosawa it is worth tracking down (Cure - or Kyua - would be a better movie for newbies to start with, though). It is, at least, better than the noodling Doppelganger, which blends Pulse's fuzzy purposelessness with some poorly executed light comedy.