Satoko (Yû Aoi) is totally addicted to her husband Yusaku (Issey Takahashi), a successful trader in Kobo, Japan. When Yusaku and his nephew Fumio (Rytal Bando) leave for a business trip to Manchuria, she hugs her husband tight and almost gives us a feeling she cannot spend a moment staying away from him. Look at Yusaku here, he accommodates the sentiments of his wife, yet not so transparent in his emotions. Yusaku keeps this attitude throughout the film. It’s hard to read him. Satoko is facing this dilemma whenever she is alone and even in his presence. Whether love is a compelling action or natural for Yusaku is the mood Kiyoshi Kurosawa maintains in Wife of a Spy which won the Silver Lion at last year’s Venice film festival.

At some point in everyone’s life, this question arises – whether others love you back the way you love them as you get no clear notion from their ‘gentle’ behavior. With a partner, this feeling can turn crazy and make you unsettled. Even a small reference from anyone you trust can prick it further. Satoko confronts the demon when her childhood friend, now an army man Taiji (Masahiro Higashide) exchanges certain details about her husband. Yusaku who considers himself a cosmopolitan and entertains foreign businessmen when world war II is on has some secrets to keep from his wife.

Kurosawa’s focus is on a lady character who never wants to degrade herself as wife of a spy. It’s a hard-core fight between loyalty to her husband and her own country. She was disappointed after meeting Yusaku’s nephew to get details of the case which turns him into a suspected traitor.

Since the plot is alive in 1940, I felt some conversations among the characters were a bit melodramatic. But Satoko’s unending quest to know her husband while living with him is the unedited trauma Kurosawa transcends to us in this wartime thriller based on a true story. Yû Aoi’s outstanding performance as a possessed wife steals the show.