The Attractive Empire

Abstract

Japanese film crews were shooting feature-length movies in China nearly three decades before Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon (1950) reputedly put Japan on the international film map. Although few would readily associate the Japanese film industry with either imperialism or the domination of world markets, the country's film culture developed in lockstep with its empire, which, at its peak in 1943, included territories from the Aleutians to Australia and from Midway Island to India. With each military victory, Japanese film culture's sphere of influence expanded deeper into Asia, first clashing with and ultimately replacing Hollywood as the main source of news, education, and entertainment for millions. This book is an examination of the attitudes, ideals, and myths of Japanese imperialism as represented in its film culture. It traces the development of Japanese film culture from its unapologetically colonial roots in Taiwan and Korea to less obvious manifestations of empire such as the semi-colonial markets of Manchuria and Shanghai and occupied territories in Southeast Asia. The book provides close readings of individual films and analyses of Japanese assumptions about Asian ethnic and cultural differences. It highlights the place of empire in the struggle at legislative, distribution, and exhibition levels to wrest the “hearts and minds” of Asian film audiences from Hollywood in the 1930s as well as in Japan's attempts to maintain that hegemony during its alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

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