It's no nail biter by any means, but more a gradual awakening by the "Wife of a Spy" to the harsh realities of the world she now lives in. She wraps this new found awareness in a romantic veil in an attempt to become closer to her husband, who she at first suspects of cheating on her, only to discover something far more serious and dangerous as well.

Her comfortable daily life becomes upended, but she manages to turn it into an opportunity to become something - someone - new, and hopefully more appreciated by her husband.

He though, the husband, remains somewhat more of a mystery to me, leaving me with more questions than answers.

Was he the one who tipped off the police to her hiding place in the freighter?

Up until the nurse from Manchuria was murdered, had he actually intended to leave with her for the US all along, without his wife? In short, was he ever truly honest with his wife about who he really was in their marriage, besides his being a spy?

Those questions about him bug me, but make the wife all the more heroic in the choices she had to make, and what she had to endure.

I also wonder if it was based on a true story as the film ends with blurbs about what happened to them after the war.

There are many reviews that go into a lot of technical aspects of the film about this and that, but that sounds like so much nonsense to me. It's not a fancy film- doesn't try to be. It's a simple love story set in a perilous time that reveals what people are made of, and the choices they will have to make as a result.

That's it in a nutshell to me. It is a good film and worthwhile to watch.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa's "Supai no tsuma" ("Wife of a Spy" in English) is about a woman in 1940s Japan married to a man suspected of being a double agent. It's one of those movies that manages to be romantic and intense at the same time.

One thing about it that I hope catches viewers' attention is the Japanese authorities' discussion of events in China. It refers to Unit 731, where Japanese troops performed horrific scientific experiments on the Chinese. This was just one of countless monstrous war crimes carried out by the Japanese troops in the '30s and '40s. While there was some prosecution of these atrocities, most of them got swept under the rug. No doubt it'll take years to fully expose the war criminals. It's perfectly understandable why Satoko and Yusaku do what they do.

Anyway, it's a fine look at Japan. The generations since WWII have been unwilling to fully acknowledge the country's war crimes; maybe the younger generation will be willing to.