People's Daily on Pride

[David Hopkins]

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From: 	Ono Seiko and Aaron Gerow
Sent: 	Sunday, May 17, 1998 9:12 PM
To: 	KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Subject: 	RE: People's Daily on Pride

Thanks to David Hopkins for his post on _Pride_.  I agree with him that,
as consumers, we would be best off ignoring _Pride_, as scholars, there
are still some issues we might want to pursue further.

The Mainichi this morning ran a rather long special report on the
controversy.  While covering both sides of the argument, the piece, in
summarizing the movie, says, "The film, taking the point of view of Tojo,
emphasizes that Japan was forced into fighting World War Two in order to
defend itself and to liberate Asia from colonialism, and that the
treatment of the Nanking Massacre in the Tokyo Trials was based on rumor
and exaggeration and used by the Allies to censure Japanese militarism."

The film was made for a very large budget of 1,500,000,000 yen to
commemorate the 30th anniversary of Higashi Nippon Hausu, a housing
company based on Morioka. HNH paid for 90% of the budget with Toei, which
is distributing the film, covering only the remaining amount.  HNH's
former chairman, Nakamura Isao, is the chair of the right-wing political
party, "Seinen Jiyuto," and started the "Gyokakai" in order to "rethink
Japanese traditional culture and maintain pride in our history."  The
film's production committee is headed by the noted right-wing foreign
policy expert, Kase Hideaki.  The president of HNH, Asano Katsuaki, said
that "We thought we had a duty to transmit a correct historical
consciousness and to bring back pride in being Japanese."

However, when Toei's labor union read the script, it declared that the
film "makes a hero out of Tojo and warps history."  Getting support from
the industry wide labor union, Eiga Engeki Rodo Kumiai Sorengo, the union
gained supporters from various fields and launched on April 20th the
"Society to Criticize the Film Pride" which has called on Toei to cancel
the release of the film.

Director Ito Shunya has defended himself by saying that "I am neither on
the right nor the left.  The Tokyo Trials were a continuation of the war
after the war, and I depicted Tojo from the perspective that he was the
one who best fought that battle."

The Mainichi underlines in a sidebar that films like _Pride_ are a
manifestation of the weak position of the film industry.  Despite hits
last year like _Paradise Lost_ and _Evangelion_, Toei revised its
projected profits for this year down from 1.8 billion to 800 million yen.
 In such a state, the industry is more likely to rely on films largely
paid for by outside sources. Thus Toei released one film last year paid
for by the dubious religous cult, "Kofuku no Kagaku," and this year
opened an animated film paid for by the Otani-ha of Jodo Shinshu.  Such
films make economic sense for Toei: they obtain films for their theaters
with little risk and often get the producing side to buy up the required
number of advance tickets.  In the case of _Pride_, HNH bought up 900,000
advance tickets (which it will presumably sell (or force on) its business
partners and employees), so that there is absolutely no chance the film
will not be a box-office success.  (This is another reason to question
the advance ticket system.)

Aaron Gerow
YNU


Actually, my sister-in-law works for a plastics company that sells flooring 
and wallpaper to Higashi Nihon House and they were pressured to buy 
half-price tickets for all of their employees as a show of corporate 
loyalty. In the last few weeks, HNH stock has declined from 650 to around 
570. Maybe they blew too much money? There is no reliable info available 
from companies that trade over-the-counter, only insiders have info.
David Hopkins