Asian Invasion

[Michael Wood]

on 1/17/01 9:01 PM, @allnet.ne.jp at schill at fra.allnet.ne.jp wrote:

> Don Brown says that a dubbed film can't be considered a foreign-language
> film. He's got a point -- perhaps I should have said "foreign film" when
> referring (somewhat facetiously) to Pokemon.
> 
> That raises the question -- is a dubbed Japanese film still "Japanese" or
> has it been rendered nationally neuter? Hmmm.
> 
> I remember all the hype a couple years ago over "Princess Mononoke," when
> not a few people (including yours truly) were predicting that it would
> replace "Shall We Dance?" as the most successful Japanese film ever released
> in the US box office. Didn't happen, unfortunately -- but no one then
> suggested that PM might not qualify for this distinction because most prints
> were dubbed. Something to do, perhaps, with PM being regarded as a
> masterpiece -- while the Pokemon films are regarded as being critically
> beneath contempt?
> 
> Mark Schilling
> 
>>> I found it interesting that, though Kehr mentions animation, he passes
>> over
>>> the Pokemon phenomenon in silence. The first Pokemon movie, not "Life Is
>>> Beautiful," is the highest grossing foreign-language film ever released
> in
>>> North America, is it not?
>> 
>> I can't back this up with hard facts, but wasn't the American version of
>> the Pokemon movie dubbed into English, meaning that it can't be considered
>> as a foreign language film?  I can't imagine that they subtitled it,
>> judging by the age of the target demographic.  I'm happy to be shot down
> by
>> someone more knowledgeable on the subject.
>> Don Brown
>> _________________________________________________________________________
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>> 
>> 
Mark Schilling writes, "is a dubbed Japanese film still 'Japanese' or
has it been rendered nationally neuter?" The categories which we use to
classify film are certainly worth interrogating. The first thing I thought
about was the Lee Marvin/ Mifune Toshiro film _Hell in the Pacific_.
Although there is little dialog, I don't think that the film was ever dubbed
or subtitled. When I saw this film with a non-Japanese speaker, I realized
how different the viewing experience could be.  Can we call this a "Japanese
film?" Or, if a Japanese-national graduate student and an American-national
grad student decide to film a manzai dialog that contains both English and
Japanese can we call this a Japanese film? (Don't worry, I don't think this
project will ever get off the ground.) Or again, what about "Japanese film"
made in the late 1930s and early 1940s that were meant to be screened
"abroad?" ("Imperial film"/ "Neo-colonial film," now that might be a good
classification for _Pokemon_ or _Princess Mononoke_.)  There are certainly
numerous examples that are either multi-lingual or otherwise difficult to
fit into the Nation-State structure that is often assumed. His question
therefore, if taken seriously, seems to open up a whole can of worms
concerning the nature of academic disciplines and the fact that knowledge is
primarily based on geographic (and most often on national) divisions. What
does it mean to  be "nationally neuter?" I am curious if anyone has been
thinking through these issues. (I just joined the list so I am not sure what
people have been discussing.) I also would like to ask Mark if there were
any films that he decided not to include in his very helpful book
_Contemporary Japanese Film_, precisely because it would have been
problematic to consider them "Japanese" film?
Michael Wood
University of Oregon