When directors remake their own films, the result can be more than a rehash, one example being Alfred¡¯s Hitchcock¡¯s 1956 ¡°The Man Who Knew Too Much,¡± a thriller based on his 1934 British film of the same title. Critics have argued the merits of both, but Hitchcock preferred the quite different remake. ¡°The first version is the work of a talented amateur, and the second was made by a professional,¡± he told fellow auteur Francois Truffaut.

Working from his own script, Kiyoshi Kurosawa has also striven to surpass his 1998 dark revenge thriller ¡°Serpent¡¯s Path¡± in a new film with the same basic storyline ¡ª but shot entirely in France and mostly in French.

Again, whether he succeeded is up for debate, though the earlier film, which features yakuza genre star Show Aikawa and the Kabuki-trained Teruyuki Kagawa at the top of their respective games, is a cult classic. The new film, which stars Ko Shibasaki in the Aikawa role, delivers the requisite shocks and chills, while probing the depths of human deception and depravity with an unblinking gaze.

There is no amateur-professional contrast, though: The 2024 film (¡°Le Chemin du Serpent¡± in French) is a solid-enough entry in the director¡¯s lengthy filmography but will not make anyone forget the 1998 original.

Shibasaki plays Sayoko Niijima, a psychiatrist and longtime resident of Paris who is fluent in French (though how fluent should be judged by a native speaker, not moi). We first see her assisting a hulking freelance journalist (Damien Bonnard) in knocking out a harmless-looking man (Mathieu Amalric) with a taser, taking him to a large, empty building and chaining him to a wall. The journalist, Albert, then shows his captive, Laval, a video of a girl he says is his murdered daughter.

When Laval pleads his innocence, Sayoko and Albert subject him to tortures designed to humiliate and dehumanize him. Away from these sessions, we see her treating a haggard patient, Yoshimura (Hidetoshi Nishijima), who is on the verge of a breakdown from culture shock, and later relaxing alone in her apartment as a Roomba cleans her floor.

We know we are watching a film by Kurosawa, that master at creating creeping dread from the mundane, when the Roomba looks somehow ominous, reminiscent of how a cheap lighter acquires a sinister aura in his 1997 masterpiece ¡°Cure.¡±

Also, Shibasaki is perfect for the role of Sayoko, who restrains Albert¡¯s murderous impulses while being slow to reveal her reasons for participating in his search for vengeance. Her ageless face is impossible to read ¡ª a mask of cool detachment from the evil around her.

The pair extend their quest to a charitable foundation that Albert claims...