Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Wife of a Spy

by
The wife and the spy go shopping

There’s a real lack of urgency in many of the films of Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Sometimes it works in his favour, sometimes against. Against, I’m feeling, with Wife of a Spy. Though there are plot bombs dropped towards the end, and fascinating ideas bubbling away in there to, this high-tone mix of lush period drama and fine acting is undercut by Kurosawa’s tendency to soft-pedal. Spies, a time of national emergency, marital infidelity, Wife of a Spy doesn’t lack for hot subject matter and, for the non-native viewer, it also offers a window on a world we don’t often see – Japan during the Second World War, when patriotism took on an almost mystical … Read more

To the Ends of the Earth

by
Yoko with a portable camera

The Japanese writer/director Kiyoshi Kurosawa (no relation to Akira) first made his name with horror movies, but even though he’s moved away from the genre at a superficial level, there’s often something dark lurking beneath what often looks like a bright and clean surface. Exhibit A: To the Ends of the Earth. It looks like a film about a young female Japanese TV reporter and her all-male crew making a travelogue in Uzbekistan. Yoko (Atsuko Maeda) has been hired because she’s pretty and professional and able to muster up that peculiar level of boggle-eyed enthusiasm for her assignment that Japanese TV requires. On-camera she’s all wild gesticulation, her voice squeaking away at an … Read more