QUESTIONNAIRE FORM TO KNOW MORE ABOUT EACH OTHER

John Dougill dougill
Sun Sep 19 23:11:30 EDT 1999


Valerie D-S raises an interesting point about the nature of the list:
"Personally, I feel the list is slightly academically orientated which
is good because the level is high. But people who have a different
background might feel hesitant to speak up. Or, their questions are limited
to basic "when can I find what..." "

I share her feelings, but I have also been given the impression that the
academic orientation is deliberate.  Perhaps the listowner could clarify
whether this is in fact so, and whether opening the list up to 'chatting'
about Japanese films would be unwelcome or not.

I recently read an excellent posting to another mailing list (DFS,
concerned with Japanese political economy matters) which I personally found
of great interest and wish that there were more of on the KineJapan list.
The focus may be slightly off target for this list, but reading it
certainly made me want to see the film......

Hans van der Lugt writes.......
>Today (saturday 18 sept) a great movie about Japan's business practices,
>that poses interesting social questions (even economic, to lure the
>economic animals of this list into further reading), hits the theaters.
>Subject is the DKB/sokaiya scandal of 1997.
>Title:  "The Financialy Corrupt Archipelago: Spellbound"
>($B6bM;Ie?)NsEg!&<vG{!"(Bsee homepage at:
>http://www.toei-group.co.jp/movie/jubaku/ )
>
>For two reasons I'd like to recommend this movie to everyone in Japan.
>(TOEI is working on a subtitled version that one day might be exported)
>
>The movie might be labeled as fiction, the connection with reality is
>clearly spelled out in the first minutes. It opens with black and white
>pictures of postwar Japan: after the famous picture of MacA. and the
>emperor, a lot of Tanaka Kakuei. Then we see an actor called "the man
>that no one really knew but has connections with the prime-minister, the
>last...., etc."  This man is the infamous "former president of a
>publishing company" who introduced Koike to DKB, and who himself was the
>succesor of Kodama Yoshio, the former Class-A war criminal and partner
>in crime of Tanaka in the Lockheed scandal. So every viewer with some
>knowledge of Japan's shady practices knows exactly how much fiction this
>movie really is.
>
>The script is based on a novel by Takasugi Ryo who, after finishing his
>work this summer, wrote: "It hurts to see the corruption of politicians
>and public officials, but if we consider that revival of Japan is only
>possible if connections with the anti-social forces are completely cut,
>we cannot stand by idly."
>
>That, I think, is an aspect of the present crisis that might not be
>easily quantifiable and therefore dismissed by economists, but could be
>rather important.
>Nine years after the bubble, the Economic Strategy Council earlier this
>year concluded that settling the accounts of the bubble - the bad debts
>- is the first condition for economic revival. Isn't collusion the main
>culprit preventing this?
>
>For instance, the most ridiculous 'bad debt' I've read about lately (not
>in one of the shady weekly's) is a debt of the LDP.  In 1993 they
>borrowed about 100 million dollars from 8 banks to be repayed in 3 years
>time. The banks are still waiting for most of their money. So how the
>hell should an agency or ministry led by an LDP politician start telling
>the banks to clean up their bad debts? Sounds like a very bad joke to
>me. As one banker said in the same article: "Politicians and sokaiya are
>basically the same".
>Collateral for the LDP-loan is the headoffice in Nagato-cho. It seems to
>me Japan is really moving towards a more transparent, accountable (those
>wildly popular words these days) system when the LDP head-office is put
>up for auction by the banks to liquidate the loan.
>
>In his version of the DKB scandal, writer Takasugi Ryo gives his own
>answer to present problems: a group of young bankers stands up against
>the corrupted topmanagement.  There's a wonderfull scene where these
>rebellious young bankers put up pictures of Lenin and Mao Tsetung on the
>walls of their office. The 'end of history' just might have to be
>suspended for a while untill the Japanese have finally achieved their
>own revolution as well.
>But then again, that might turn out to be the really fictional part of
>this movie.
>
>The second reason to see this movie is that it's simply a well done
>thriller with good actors.  Main characters are played by Yakusho Koji
>(the young banker turned rebel) and Nakadai Tatsuya (a great performance
>as the limping godfather of the bank, enjoying his exquisite French
>wines at his mistress' house while his world is falling apart; to turn
>the story into a drama of Shakespearean proportions rebel Yakusho
>happens to be his son-in-law, in the movie that is)
>
>Hans van der Lugt
>






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