Dear all,<div>Roger's post prompts another thought: is 11 years the usual span between a disaster and any comedy related to it? Wearing another hat, I've written a paper on how Men in Black 3 was delayed by 11 years and was then set in a pre twin towers New York, speculating that aliens destroying the city was not something to be laughed at in the immediate post 9/11 era.</div>
<div>That might explain my misreading of Fish Story's reception: was it its 2011 stage verson that was such a failure and I crossed my wires there? Lola<br><br>On Tuesday, 8 April 2014, Roger Macy <<a href="mailto:macyroger@yahoo.co.uk">macyroger@yahoo.co.uk</a>> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div style="font-size:12pt;font-family:HelveticaNeue,Helvetica Neue,Helvetica,Arial,Lucida Grande,Sans-Serif">
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Dear KineJapaners,<br></span></div><div style="font-style:normal;font-size:16px;background-color:transparent;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Prompted by
Lola’s post, about a film whose distribution was affected by the disasters, I
did write a very unscholarly account of <i>The
Floating Castle</i> / <i>Nobō no shiro</i>
at the end of this piece :-</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><a href="http://www.midnighteye.com/features/udine-far-east-film-festival-2013/" target="_blank">http://www.midnighteye.com/features/udine-far-east-film-festival-2013/</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">I think we
might have mentioned in another thread about the Chinese film ‘Aftershock’ / </span><span lang="ZH-CN">唐山大地震</span><span style="font-size:13.5pt">, </span><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">which was pulled from Tokyo cinemas
immediately after March ’11.<span> </span>Allcinema
site has a rather indeterminate release date of “2012/”.</span></div><div style="font-style:normal;font-size:16px;background-color:transparent;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><br>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">I have
appreciated the many contributions to this thread, learning of the different
legitimate interests that scholars and teachers can have.<span> </span>But, in a way, I’m surprised there’s so
much.<span> </span>Somebody with a lot of patience
recently did a study that suggested a median time-delay of eleven years between
historical events and literature</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/if-the-slump-wasnt-bad-enough-stand-by-for-the-literary-misery-thats-bound-to-follow-9047240.html" target="_blank">http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/if-the-slump-wasnt-bad-enough-stand-by-for-the-literary-misery-thats-bound-to-follow-9047240.html</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Given that
films more often follow literature than precede it, one might expect the delay in
fiction films to be greater rather than smaller.<span> </span>So, I was hardly shocked to read Jasper, in a
DVD review in Sight and Sound, to judge ‘Land of Hope’, 2011, by Sono Shion as “premature”.<span> </span>Even more premature was to be asked in
Frankfurt in <u>May, 2011</u> what the effect on Japanese films was.<span> </span>Almost any discussion in London that has any
connection to Japanese film gets thrown the question of the effect of the triple
disaster, or, more often, just the effect of the Fukushima melt-down, in a way
that I do not see it put about other countries’ disasters.<span> </span>So I do wonder whether there isn’t an element
of Japanese exceptionalism, at least from non-specialists, in what I’ll call
the doubly premature reception of Japanese disaster films ?</span></div><div style="font-style:normal;font-size:16px;background-color:transparent;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Roger<br>
</span></div>
<div><span></span></div><div><br></div><blockquote style="border-left:2px solid rgb(16,16,255);margin-left:5px;margin-top:5px;padding-left:5px"> <div style="font-family:HelveticaNeue,Helvetica Neue,Helvetica,Arial,Lucida Grande,Sans-Serif;font-size:12pt">
<div style="font-family:HelveticaNeue,Helvetica Neue,Helvetica,Arial,Lucida Grande,Sans-Serif;font-size:12pt"> <div dir="ltr"> <hr size="1"> <font face="Arial"> <b><span style="font-weight:bold">From:</span></b> Dolores Martinez <<a href="javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','dm6@soas.ac.uk');" target="_blank">dm6@soas.ac.uk</a>><br>
<b><span style="font-weight:bold">To:</span></b> Japanese Cinema Discussion Forum <<a href="javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','kinejapan@lists.service.ohio-state.edu');" target="_blank">kinejapan@lists.service.ohio-state.edu</a>> <br>
<b><span style="font-weight:bold">Sent:</span></b> Tuesday, 8 April 2014, 12:14<br> <b><span style="font-weight:bold">Subject:</span></b> Re: [KineJapan] Tsunami and heartwake 2011 Av coverage<br> </font> </div> <div><br>
<div><div><br clear="none">Dear Stephen, <div>thank you for that! I see the DVD release in 2011 produced some crossed wires for Nakamura's film, which is entirely my fault. But yes, it is that film I'm writing about, as I find its fictional depiction of Japanese responses to the end of the world somewhat prophetic (I know that in the West, it was all about how calm and well mannered the Japanese were, but if you talk to Japanese who were there and are aware of the actual statistics for the looting and increased reportage of rape in the earthquake hit zone, as Ueno Chizuko has argued, you get a rather different picture of things...).<div>
I was also wondering, however, about general writing on Japanese disaster films that are not necessarily Godzilla films. Any thoughts?</div><div>Yours, Lola </div><div><div><br clear="none">On Tuesday, 8 April 2014, Stephen Cremin <<a rel="nofollow" shape="rect">stephen@asianfilm.info</a>> wrote:<br clear="none">
<blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<span style="font-size:14px">Lola, you mean Hayashiya Shinpei's RAKUGO MONOGATARI, which I didn't know had an English title, that opened on 12 March 2011 or Nakamura Yoshihiro's end-of-the-world disaster comedy FISH STORY that opened on 20 Mar 2009 in Japan and on 28 May 2010 in the UK?</span>
</div><div><span style="font-size:14px"><br clear="none"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:14px">The latter played several festivals - HKIFF, Udine, Japan Cuts, Puchon, Vienna, Kaohsiung, Göteborg, Brussels, Terracotta and Fantasia - so there should be some writing in English about it. It was also distributed in South Korea and Taiwan.</span></div>
<div><div><br clear="none"></div><div><span style="font-size:14px">For the former, I'd be very surprised if there's anything in English.</span></div><div><br clear="none"></div><div>Stephen</div><div>
<br clear="none"></div></div>
<div style="color:#a0a0a8">On Tuesday, 8 April 2014 at 17:13, Dolores Martinez wrote:</div>
<blockquote type="cite" style="border-left-style:solid;border-width:1px;margin-left:0px;padding-left:10px">
<span></span><div><div><br clear="none">Dear all, again somewhat off topic, but I've been following this discussion with interest as I'm writing a paper on Fish Story, the disaster 'comedy' that came out on March 12, 2011 and obviously did not do well at the box office. Has anyone written on this film specifically or on the genre generally (and yes, I know the Godzilla literature!). I was interested to see Paul Berry mention Megalopolis, as an alternative reality anime. I have always wondered if it had attracted scholarly attention -- but anything on this topic would be useful for me. Thanks,<div>
Lola </div><div> <div>On Tuesday, 8 April 2014, Christian Morimoto Hermansen <<a rel="nofollow" shape="rect">christian_hermansen@hotmail.com</a>> wrote:<br clear="none"><blockquote type="cite"><div>
<div><div dir="ltr">Another two dealing with the Hanshin Awaji Daishinsai are <div>1. The 2010 drama-docu Kobe shinbun no nananichikan <h2 style="line-height:1.5;color:rgb(102,102,102);font-size:18px;font-family:meiryo,Arial,Helvetica;margin:0px 10px;padding:0px">
神戸新聞の7日間 〜命と向き合った被災記者たちの闘い〜 動画</h2><div>on how the News must be published no matter what; starring Sakurai Sho as a Kobe Shinbun photographer covering the disaster. Quite well done. </div><div>2. Sakamoto Junji's "Kao" from 2000, where the main character escapes Kobe, for other reasons, on the morning of the Earthquake.</div>
<div><br clear="none"></div><div>Christian</div><br clear="none"><div><hr>Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2014 08:08:18 +0300<br clear="none">From: <a rel="nofollow" shape="rect">eija@helsinkicineaasia.fi</a><br clear="none">
To: <a rel="nofollow" shape="rect">kinejapan@lists.service.ohio-state.edu</a><br clear="none">Subject: Re: [KineJapan] Tsunami and heartwake 2011 Av coverage<br clear="none">
<br clear="none"><div dir="ltr">In one of the last Otoko wa tsurai yo films Yamada placed Tora-san in post-quake Kobe, helping the victims. That is the only one I can remember about the Hanshin earthquake. <div>Eija</div>
</div><div>
<br clear="none"><br clear="none"><div>2014-04-08 5:02 GMT+03:00 Jeremy Harley <span dir="ltr"><<a rel="nofollow" shape="rect">jeremyharley@gmail.com</a>></span>:<br clear="none"><blockquote style="border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr"><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Yes, I would think there are certain times when you have to approach the topic from the opposite direction, as in not "are there quake films?" but "where is the quake in these films?" And I would also think it important to look beyond the films themselves.</div>
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