A film by Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Run Time: 115 mins.
Release Date: 2021
Rating: NR
Drama
Friday, April 21, 2023
Time: 7:00 pm (In Japanese, subtitled in English)
Cost: Members – $5 | Non-Members – $7
Master filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Pulse, Cure, Tokyo Sonata) won the Silver Lion (Best Director) at the Venice Film Festival for this riveting, gorgeously crafted, old-school Hitchockian thriller shot in stunning 8K. The year is 1940 in Kobe, on the eve of the outbreak of World War II. Local merchant and amateur filmmaker Yusaku (Issey Takahashi, Kill Bill) senses that things are headed in an unsettling direction. Following a trip to Manchuria, he becomes determined to bring to light the things he witnessed there and secretly filmed. Meanwhile, his wife Satoko (Japan Society’s 2021 Honoree Yû Aoi) receives a visit from her childhood friend, now a military policeman. He warns her about Yusaku’s seditious ways and reveals that a woman her husband brought back from his trip has died. Satoko confronts Yusaku, but when she discovers his true intentions, she is torn between loyalty to her husband, the life they have built, and the country they call home.
Winner: Silver Lion, Best Director – Venice Film Festival
“Critic’s Pick! Thrum[s] with unusual intensity… Wife of a Spy is something like linear narrative perfection, with every scene perfectly calibrated.”
– Glenn Kenny, The New York Times
“An absorbing, exotic, well-paced thriller.”
– Deborah Young, The Hollywood Reporter
“A suspenseful home front scenario worthy of John le Carré’s storied blend of tradecraft, history, and insight into the ramifications of duplicity… with elements of a Hitchcock-style swirl of marital intrigue, entrapment, and escape.”
– Robert Abele, The Wrap
“An old-fashioned drama replete with big performances and plot twists, double-cross and triple-cross.”
– Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
It tends to be cold in our theater. You may want a sweater or a jacket with you.
