Baskett Michael. The Attractive Empire: Transnational Film Culture in Imperial Japan (ENG)

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Transnational

Film Culture

in Imperial Japan

Michael Baskett

The

Attractive

Empire

The Attractive Empire is the  rst comprehensive exami-

nation of the attitudes, ideals, and myths of Japanese

imperialism as represented in its  lm culture. In this

stimulating new study, Michael Baskett traces the devel-

opment of Japanese  lm culture from its unapologeti-

cally colonial roots in Taiwan and Korea to less obvious

manifestations of empire such as the semicolonial mar-

kets of Manchuria and Shanghai and occupied territo-

ries in Southeast Asia.

“Because imperialism has had such an appalling ideo-

logical reputation, we’ve lost sight of its excitement, the

breathless anticipation of adventures in far-o lands.

The Attractive Empire is a tour de force of enthralling

historical scholarship that puts the appeal, and seduc-

tions, of imperialism on display, without underestimat-

ing its ugly consequences. Like its chosen subject, the

book covers an astonishing array of texts, events, people,

and issues. The clarity and vividness of the writing make

it work e ortlessly. Baskett’s organizational skills, narra-

tive, and rhetoric de ly orchestrate a complex subject.”

Darrell William Davis, University of New South Wales

“Michael Baskett removes imperial Japanese  lm from

its solitary con nement and commandingly analyzes

how it functioned internationally. He commits a depth

of research rarely found in English-language studies of

Japanese cinema, and his mastery of the primary and

secondary sources from beyond Japan’s borders dis-

tinctly sets his book apart from previous scholarship on

the subject. Not only is this a work that historians and

 lm scholars will appreciate but also one that I look for-

ward to assigning to undergraduates.”

Barak Kushner, Cambridge University

Michael Baskett is associate professor in the Depart-

ment of Theatre and Film, University of Kansas.

University of

Hawai‘i Press

Honolulu, Hawai‘i

96822-1888

Cover illustrations: The photo-

graph of the cameraman  rst

appeared as an advertisement for

the Nippon News newsreel series

produced by Nihon Eiga sha.

Source: Japan Photo Almanac (Dai

Toa Shashin Nenpo), published by

Domei Tsushinsha, 1943. The car-

toon, entitled “The Location Squad

Moves South” (Roketai minami he

yuku), appeared in the magazine

Eiga no Tomo, March 1942, 78 – 79.

Cover design: April Leidig-Higgins

www.uhpress.hawaii.edu

Bask e t t The Attractive Empire Transnational Film Culture in Imperial Japan

japanese film

The Attractive Empire

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The Attractive Empire

Transnational Film Culture

in Imperial Japan

Michael Baskett

University of Hawai‘i Press

Honolulu

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Printed in the United States of America

13 12 11 10 09 08 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Baskett, Michael.

The attractive empire : transnational ﬁ lm culture in

imperial Japan / Michael Baskett.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

isbn 978-0-8248-3163-9 (hardcover : alk. paper)

isbn 978-0-8248-3223-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Motion pictures, Japanese—Asia—History.

2. Motion pictures—Japan—History. I. Title.

pn1993.5.j3b38 2008

791.430952—dc22 2007043305

University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free

paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability

of the Council on Library Resources.

Printed by The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group

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Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Lost Histories 1

chapter one

From Film Colony to Film Sphere 13

chapter two

Media Empire: Creating Audiences 41

chapter three

Imperial Acts: Japan Performs Asia 72

chapter four

Competing Empires in Transnational Asia 106

chapter five

The Emperor’s Celluloid Army Marches On 132

Selected Filmography 155

Notes 173

Selected Bibliography 201

Index 209

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Acknowledgments

My earliest research into the subject of this book began more than twenty years

ago. This book was made possible by the generous and tireless assistance of the

staff of many libraries and collections including: the Special Collections and

Theater Libraries at the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of

California at Los Angeles Film and Television Archive, the Tsubouchi Memorial

Theatre Museum (Waseda University), the Kawakita Memorial Film Institute,

the Makino Collection, the Film Center Library at the National Museum of

Modern Art, Tokyo, the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion

Picture Arts and Sciences, the Louis B. Mayer Library of the American Film

Institute, the Cinematic Arts Library of the University of Southern California,

Shochiku Studios Library, the Japanese National Diet Library, the Library of

Congress, the Chinese Taipei Film Archive Library, the Hong Kong Film Ar-

chive Library, The Museum of Kyoto, and Planet Bibliotheque de Cinema.

Over the years, many people have supported this project in various ways pro-

viding useful criticisms as well as welcome advice. In Japan I would like to thank

Hosokawa Shuhei, Iwamoto Kenji, Kano Masanao, the late Kurosawa Akira, Ma-

kino Mamoru, Nogami Teruyo, Sato Masaharu, the late Shimizu Akira, Ta jima

Ryoichi, the late Tsukada Yoshinobu, Yoshimi Shunya, and Yoshitsuru Yoshi-

mitsu for selﬂ essly sharing their time and insight with me. Outside Japan I would

like to thank Nick Browne, Darrell Davis, the late William Everson, Elyssa

Faison, Poshek Fu, James Goodwin, the late John Hampton, Jan-Christopher

Horak, Iwasaki Shoichi, Joo Soowan, Kim Minkyu, Kim Soyoung, Thomas

Lahusen, Sheldon Lu, Todd Mittleman, Mizuno Hiromi, Abe Mark Nornes,

Remco Rabin, David Shepard, Mariko Tamanoi, Alan Tansman, and William

Tsutsui. I wish to express my deepest thanks to Miriam Silverberg, Seiji Lippit,

Carol Gluck, and Madge Huntington, who were always there to guide and sup-

port me in this project from the dissertation stage through to publication. My val-

ued friend and colleague Barak Kushner of Cambridge University has been an

invaluable inﬂ uence on this project sharing both his expansive knowledge and

humor to make writing this book a far more enjoyable and worthwhile process

that it might have been.

At several stages the work was supported by a generous fellowship from the

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viii acknowledgments

Fulbright Foundation allowing me to conduct research in Japan, a summer grant

from the University of Oregon, a Hall Center Fellowship and two travel grants

from the University of Kansas, and three academic fellowships from the Univer-

sity of California at Los Angeles. I am very grateful to the ﬁ lm directors Hal Hart-

ley and Mabel Cheung for giving me the opportunity of working as an assistant

director and for their friendship. I would also like to thank my colleagues in the

Department of Theatre and Film at the University of Kansas for their support.

I also want to thank my graduate and undergraduate students who helped me

think through many of the issues that I presented in the book.

This book never would have been completed without the love and support of

my families. In Japan, Hideo and Tomoko Kuroda were and are a constant source

of much needed love, encouragement, and trust. Their spiritual and material sup-

port made all of this possible. In the United States, Don and Joyce Baskett also

supported, encouraged, and in many ways inspired this project by instilling a deep

love of ﬁ lm in me when I was a child. Throughout all of this Dariko has always

supported me in every way and at all times. Over the years and through every

challenge we have faced together her love and companionship have been the

greatest constant in my life, inspiring me to want to become both a better person

and a better scholar. Doriko, you’ll never know how glad I am that I met you.

Finally, I wish to express my sincere gratitude to Patricia Crosby of the Univer-

sity of Hawai‘i Press for believing in and guiding this project through to comple-

tion. In addition, I wish to thank Margaret Black and Cheri Dunn and the two

anonymous readers for their immeasurable patience and professionalism in help-

ing me publish this during what turned out to be a particularly challenging time.

While these people and institutions (and many more that I am unable to name

for reasons of space) have contributed to this project, only I am responsible for

any mistakes or errors in this work.

Earlier versions of portions of chapter 4 have been previously published in

different forms in the following: “Dying for a Laugh: Post-1945 Japanese Service

Comedies,” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 23, no. 4 (October

2003): 291–310; and “Goodwill Hunting: Rediscovering and Remembering Man-

chukuo in Japanese ‘Goodwill Films,’ ” in Mariko Asano Tamanoi ed. Crossed

Histories: Manchuria in the Age of Empire (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2005):

120–149.

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Lost Histories

In 2002, the fourth highest grossing ﬁ lm in South Korea was a big-budget science

ﬁ ction epic directed by Lee Si-Myung entitled 2009: Lost Memories. Based on

a bestselling novel by Bok Geo-il, the ﬁ lm poses the intriguing question: “What

if Japan had never lost its empire?”

Lost Memories offers viewers an alternate

history in which Korean nationalist Ahn Jung-geun (a real-life ﬁ gure who as-

sassinated Japanese Resident-General of Korea Ito Hirobumi in 1909) fails to

assassinate Ito, with the result that Japan is not defeated in World War II but

ﬁ ghts with the United States against Nazi Germany. Atomic bombs are dropped

on Berlin, ending the war, and Japan retains its Asian empire intact. In 2009,

Seoul is the third largest city in the Japanese empire, a high-tech postmodern

metropolis awash with Japanese billboards, stores, and cars. The Japanese Bureau

of Investigation (JBI) maintains colonial order, which is challenged only by an

underground Korean resistance movement known as the furei senjin.

The two

main protagonists, Korean JBI agent Sakamoto (played by Korean actor Jang

Dong-Gun) and Japanese agent Saigo (played by the Japanese actor Nakamura

Toru), learn the truth about this false history late in the ﬁ lm.

Japan has tampered with the history that you know. In 2008, North and

South Korea united after sixty years of separation to be reborn into a mighty

East Asian nation with a stable economy and a powerful military. At that

time, a movement started to take back land that once belonged to ancient

Korea (Goguryeo).

You may not know this, but all of the territory around

Manchuria belonged to our ancestors. Naturally, the Chinese government

denied any access to the area, but with persistence, [China] ﬁ nally admitted

a joint research team of Korea, China, and Japan. [The Japanese] discovered

a doorway in time [that they used] to escape the shame of defeat in the

Paciﬁ c War and Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A Japanese right-wing extremist

group sent an assassin back a hundred years in time to change history. This

was the start of our unfortunate history.

Lost Memories concerns us because it is not simply anti-Japanese Korean nation-

alist propaganda. It is important to consider that Lost Memories was a mainstream

box-ofﬁ ce hit and not a documentary or art-house ﬁ lm produced for a limited

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