Wife of a Spy (114 minutes) is the first 8K production from Kurosawa, who has earned a global reputation for movies such as Tokyo Sonata (2008), which won the Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival; Journey to the Shore (2014), which won the prize for best direction in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival; and Before We Vanish (2018). Kurosawa co-scripted it with Hamaguchi Ryusuke, whose earlier work includes Happy Hour (2015) and Asako I & II (2018) (selected to compete for the Palme d’Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival), and Nohara Tadashi.

The story is set in the Japanese city of Kobe in 1940, just before Japan was caught up in World War Two. It centers on a wife who stays true to her own convictions amid the tides of war. Her husband, a trader, brings a woman back to Japan when he returns from Manchuria. When the woman dies, the wife learns her husband’s secrets and takes an astonishing course of action. The protagonist and her husband are played by two of Japan’s most popular actors, Aoi Yu and Takahashi Issei.