Venice: ‘Wife of a Spy’ Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa on ‘Making the Scary Parts Scary’

Japanese filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa is a directorial polyglot, no doubt about it, but he’s more fluent in some cinematic languages than others.

Ever since being put on to Tohji, I haven't been able to get quite enough. Hailing from the outskirts of Tokyo, and never not dripped out in Harajuku's finest threads, he's got the ego to match his outsized brand of electro-rap.

Ben Croll Director Yulene Olaizola might have already worked on a number of films over the course of her still young career, but nothing could prepare the Mexican filmmaker for what she would encounter with her latest, “Tragic Jungle.”A 1920’s-set, mythology-influenced chase film set on the verdant border between Mexico and Belize, this Mexican-French-Colombian co-production, which premiered in Venice earlier this month before heading to San Sebastian and New York, marked a serious scale-up for

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticIf you go back and watch Sofia Coppola’s “Lost in Translation” (2003), you’ll see that it’s lost none of its shimmer — that airily crafted blend of mood and moment, location and dislocation, all wrapped around the delicate tale of two souls who didn’t know they were lost until they found each other in the floating limbo of the Park Hyatt Tokyo.

Sony Pictures Classics has acquired Pathé's Venice-bowing comedy-drama The Duke for a range of territories worldwide, including the U.S. The distributor also picked up the film —starring Oscar winners Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren —for Latin America, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe (excluding Poland, the Czech Republic and the former Yugoslavia), Russia/CIS, Greece, Turkey, Portugal, South Africa, India and Southeast Asia (excluding Japan and China).

Also Read: 'Minari' Director Shares the 'Poetic' Meaning Behind Immigrant Tale's Title (Video)Bad Robot’s J.J. Abrams will produce the live-action adaptation along with Genki Kawamura, who produced the original.

Maggie Lee Chief Asia Film Critic“Prison is the only place that won’t kick you out no matter how badly you behave,” remarks the ex-con protagonist, who gets no second chances in Japanese society. Directed with piercing insight, emotional depth and true compassion by Miwa Nishikawa, “Under the Open Skies” tells a heartbreaking tale of a pariah whose soul is crushed by systemic discrimination and a world of hypocritical conformity.

Japanese filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa nabbed another career honor Sunday, winning the Venice Film Festival's best director award for Wife of a Spy, the first period drama of his prolific filmography. Set in 1940 Kobe, Japan, the film stars Issey Takahashi (Kill Bill, Shin Godzilla) as a debonair silk merchant whose cosmopolitan world view is on a collision course with Japan's advancing militarism and stifling social conformity.

Alissa Simon Film CriticThe winner of Karlovy Vary’s East of the West prize for her debut, “The Wednesday Child” (2015), Hungarian multihyphenate Lili Horvát screens “Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time” at the Toronto Intl. Film Festival after its world premiere in Venice Days.

Set in 1940 in Kobe, Japan, with an epilogue during the bombing of the city in 1945, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s intriguingly titled Wife of a Spy (Spy no Tsuma) bookends the Second World War in an absorbing, exotic, well-paced thriller with moments of disconcerting realism and horror. Its spot in Venice competition is a well-earned promotion for the director after his many accolades for films like Kairo, Tokyo Sonata and Before We Vanish.

Cate Blanchett brings her star style to the red carpet for the premiere of Spy No Tsuma (Wife Of A Spy) during the 2020 Venice Film Festival on Wednesday night (September 9) in Venice, Italy.

Guy Lodge Film Critic“Wife of a Spy” is a debatable title on two fronts. The man in question may or may not be a spy, and while the female protagonist is certainly his wife, that passive, possessive phrasing undersells the degree to which she commands Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s thoroughly involving, old-school slice of wartime cloak and dagger.

Amongst the upcoming films that suffered at the hands of the COVID-19 pandemic was Tom Cruise starrer Mission: Impossible 7. In February, production was supposed to kickstart in Venice before moving to Rome.

Filmmaker Kornél Mundruczó is no stranger to the film festival circuit, with his 2005 film “Johanna” screening at the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival, before “White God” took home the Prize Un Certain Regard later in 2014. “White God” was even selected to be Hungary’s entry for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 87th Academy Awards.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentSusanna Nicchiarelli’s “Nico, 1988,” about the German singer who performed with the Velvet Underground, made a splash in Venice in 2017 when it took top honors in the cutting-edge Horizons section.