Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa (no relation to Akira) and ubiquitous leading man Koji Yakusho terrified audiences in 2001 with “Cure” [“Kyua”]. Unlike its blockbuster contemporaries in Japanese horror – such as “Ring” [“Ringu”] and “The Grudge” [“Ju-On”] – “Cure” eschewed special effects and shock tactics in favor of psychological screws. If your spouse, or your co-worker, or the stranger next to you on the bus could one day snap and kill you (given just the right trigger) what does that fear taste like? How much rage and malice occupies the human heart to make this feasible? IMO, “Cure” is the scariest movie ever made.

With that kind of precedent, my expectations for “Retribution” were high. Yakusho is once again cast in the lead; he plays Detective Yoshioka, a hard-boiled cop investigating a young woman’s murder. He is a remote, cynical man who barely gets along with his colleagues. His visits with his girlfriend are so aloof that he might as well be interacting with a cleaning lady. When clues to the murder start pointing towards himself, Yoshioka is more curious than alarmed by the fact that he doesn’t remember committing the crime. His moral apathy is challenged when a female ghost (Riona Hazuki) starts visiting him and other people start committing murders they can’t remember.

The film is set in an environment of industrial decay, at the fringe of a city where drab, abandoned buildings rot. It is symbolic of the moral rot in modern society where selfishness reigns and the have-nots die of neglect. The cinematography is washed in oppressive grey tones (although the film is in color), creating a prolonged and almost tortuous feeling of dread.

The biggest chills in “Retribution” are truly inspired yet astonishingly lo-tech. As Det. Yoshioka sits in his dimly lit apartment we expect something hideous to jump out and the camera work trains the audience’s eyes on the focal point of the shot. Very slowly, in a scene where nothing appears to be happening, the eyes begin to discern a shadow within a shadow reflected in a mirror placed off to the side. Was that shadow always there and we’re only noticing it now? In the split second before the ghost makes herself seen, the audience has already sensed her in the room and the effect is a wave of goosebumps.

Such mastery of sleight of hand and psychological horror is Kurosawa’s trademark. He is in his element when working with scenes of subtlety and nuance. So perhaps producer Takashige Ichise – the mogul behind the “Ringu” and “Ju-On” franchises – is to blame for the over-the-top jolts and F/X laden second half that derails the whole movie. The ghost becomes more silly than scary when she takes swan dives into a bowl of water to kill people. Or when she floats across rooms like an untethered balloon, unleashing her shrill screams (which the Japanese title references). Are we supposed to jump or laugh when the vengeful ghost literally droops her hands in the classic yurei pose, showing that she really really means it when she curses a victim? Kurosawa would be better off trusting his own instincts than pandering to commercial trends.