Wife of a Spy (2020) poster
2020 · drama · period · espionage · thriller

Wife of a Spy

Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa1h 54m2020
ElsewhereIMDb6.63kRT89%Metacritic79TMDB6.7102
  • sombre
  • intense
Movie DNA

Sombre, steady, measured drama / period, grounded in texture. Ambivalent, mid-stakes, measured, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

It’s 1940, and the population of Japan is divided over its entry into World War II. Satoko, the wife of a fabric merchant, is devoted to her husband but is beginning to suspect he’s up to something. Soon she allows herself to be drawn into a game in which she enigmatically conceals her intentions.

Our read · Wife of a Spy (2020) reads as a sombre, steady, grounded drama · period · espionage entry — measured in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, measured in temperature, ambivalent in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

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What watching it is actually like.

You want a subtle WWII Japanese marital thriller about suspicion and loyalty in wartime.

ends bittersweetit stays with youa slow buildgrips by minute 25attention 4/5earns its lengthsubtitles: full
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-upgraphic violence

Skip it tonightYou want fast thrills or avoid subtitles and slow historical dramas.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
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