Query: Japanese-Foreigners Love affairs/ai-no-ko

[Aaron Gerow]

>In Shoot, My Darlin (forgot the Japanese title & director's name),
>there is a love affair between a Japanese bodyguard and the Chinese girl

It's called _Koroshiya to usotsuki musume_ and is directed by Osawa 
Hitoshi.

For other choices, many of the wartime films of Ri Ko Ran, like _Shina no 
yoru_, featured affairs between Japanese men and her playing a Chinese 
woman (which became the symbol for Asian unity under Japanese patriarchy).

Imai Tadashi's _Kiku to Isamu_ is the most famous film about children of 
interracial marriages.

Hara Kazuo's _Kyokushiteki erosu_ includes a section where his former 
wife is involved with a black American.

Yanagimachi Mitsuo's _Ai ni tsuite Tokyo_

Tashiro Hirotaka's _Afureru atsui namida_

The personal documentary _Tsuma wa Filipina_ by Terada Yasunori.

Yamamoto Masashi's films like _Junk Food_ and _Atlanta Boogie_ have 
international couples (in the former, one ends in murder).

Of course, Sai Yoichi's _All Under the Moon_.

One of the more famous characters of mixed couplings in jidaigeki is 
Nemuri Kyoshiro in the _Sleepy Eyes of Death_ series.

Miike Takashi's _Bird People of China_ features a Chinese girl who has 
mixed Chinese and English parentage.  His other films like _Rainy Dog_ 
include couplings involving Japan, but Miike is rarely interested in love 
affairs in his action films.

Most of these are available on video in Japan, but as far as I know only 
the _Sleepy Eyes of Death_ films (ironically?) are available abroad.  
Please correct me if I am wrong.

That's all I can think of for the time being, but I'm sure more will come 
up later.




Aaron Gerow
Associate Professor
International Student Center
Yokohama National University
79-1 Tokiwadai
Hodogaya-ku, Yokohama 240-8501
JAPAN
E-mail: gerow at ynu.ac.jp
Phone: 81-45-339-3170
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