Furusawa began making 8mm films in college, and won the scriptwriting award for his film home sweet movie at the 1997 Pia Film Festival.[1] He enrolled at the Film School of Tokyo in 1997.[1] After graduating, he worked as a director's assistant for Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Shinji Aoyama, and Takahisa Zeze, and penned the scripts for Zeze's Chōgokudō and Kurosawa's Doppelganger.[1] He made his major feature length directorial debut with Ghost Train in 2006.