Kenichi Ugana Interview: The Curse (Fantastic Fest 2025)

We continue our 2025 coverage of Fantastic Fest with something a little different now…

Yesterday, I talked about the latest movie from Japanese indie director, Kenichi Ugana. A bit fan of his previous work, The Gesouidoz, as soon as I saw it was part of this year’s fantastic fest line-up, I had to pounce. The Curse was a curious beast, and as wildly different as it was, it has marked out Ugana as a director I’m excited to see more of. I described this latest (he has more coming this year), in the following terms: “the satire runs deep, whereby the apathy and incurious ways of the social media world that has drawn the creative streak of Kenichi Ugana defangs most meaningful criticism of this energetic love letter to the ’90s Japanese Horror Boom. This all collectively forms one of the more fun horror experiences of 2025’s festival season”. Read More on that review here.

To follow that up, we had a brief chat about the movie, and his aspirations as a filmmaker. For more interviews, check out our YouTube Channel.

Hello Kenichi. How has Fantastic Fest been? 

“I came here two years ago for a screening of “VISITORS-COMPLETE EDITION,” and it was fantastic with such a wonderful audience”.

Your latest movie, the Curse, is having its World Premiere. So, in the simplest terms, what is the movie about?

“It’s a story about a curse that occurs on social media. I think it’s a story that can happen to anyone”.

People often say “you shouldn’t read the comment section”. How did you go from there to Instagram playing such a huge role in how the story unfolds? 

“I think it’s the same all over the world, but in recent years in Japan, I feel like there has been an increase in posts on social media criticizing people with harsher language than ever before. That’s why I wanted to depict this theme. Then, an acquaintance of mine said, “The account of a friend who passed away continues to post as if he were still alive,” and these two points inspired me to make this film”.

I spotted references to Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the Ju-On Movies and Ringu, and it feels like the DNA of 1990s Japanese horror is coursing through the movie. How did this era of Japanese filmmaking influence you when making the Curse? 

“First of all, those films had a huge impact on me as a movie fan. And as for this film, I was inspired by “Ring” in the sense that a curse spreads through some kind of medium, and by Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s films in the way they create a worldview. Japanese films from the 1990s are wonderful in that they retain a sense of ominousness throughout the film”.

Aside from being a co-production, how is Taiwan different from Japan when it comes to curses?

“The most famous ritual to curse someone in Japan is to nail a straw doll to a tree in the middle of the night. This is very famous and creepy, so I looked into whether there was a similar curse in Taiwan, and found out that in Taiwan they use a paper doll to curse someone. I found this very interesting”.

Movies are great windows into folklore and rituals of different cultures. What did you have to change or adapt from real rituals and folklore for this movie?  

“The image of a Japanese ghost is mainly a woman with long hair and wearing white clothes, but the image of a Taiwanese ghost is a woman with red clothes, long hair, and a long tongue sticking out. I haven’t explicitly stated that the incarnation of the curse that appears in this film is a ghost, but I was influenced by the image of a Taiwanese ghost”.

On that theme, the set design of the “curse room” is very impressive and the character goes all but unseen outside of the finale. How do you go about using set design to tell a story about such a complex, dangerous character?

“All I can say about this is that the Taiwanese art team is incredibly talented. I was really moved when I first saw this room. What’s more, the direction the dolls are facing and each and every object placed there has meaning. Working with them was one of the highlights of this film”.

Thinking about how the ceremony ends, the dog scene, and the “bedroom resolution”, your female characters have a pretty rough time in this movie. How did you approach these messier moments with your cast?

“It’s very interesting that they made such an impression. In fact, the ratio of men to women who die or go crazy in the film is equal. I made meticulous preparations so that we could finish filming in one take, creating an environment where they could concentrate, and they simply performed with all their might”.

Taking a step back from The Curse, what ignited your passion for movies and convinced you to pursue a career as a filmmaker?

“Maybe there wasn’t one cool trigger. I love movies and I want to make movies, and when I make a movie with a theme that I want to see, I want to make it better, and then I want to make a new movie for the audience who watches my movies, and then staff and actors I want to work with appear, and it’s a cycle that repeats over and over”.

There’s a new generation of exciting, independent Japanese filmmakers appearing on the global stage. How is it making movies as a Japanese filmmaker in 2025? 

“Films in Japan are made on really low budgets compared to other countries. This has both good and bad points, but if we look at the good points, it’s because of this that a wide variety of films are produced and there are so many independent cinemas. However, I’m sure this will change. I think there are films that can only be made in Japan now, so I hope to keep that in mind as we move forward”.

Your movies are so wildly different from one another (my personal favourite being the Gesuidouz), and you produce them super quickly too. What interests and motivates you as a storyteller, and what are you thinking of for your next movie?

“⇒””There are so many new things I want to try in the film industry. I don’t know if it’ll be a physical problem or if I’ll just stop getting offers, but there will come a day when I can no longer make films, so I want to try as many things as possible before then. My most recent film is “Incompete Chairs,” which will have its world premiere at the Slash Film Festival on September 24th, and is about making chairs out of human flesh. I also finished a body horror film about the love between a parent and child the day before I came to Austin. I’m also planning to shoot a sci-fi action musical romance comedy in November.

Thank you for your time, Kenichi