Pearl Harbour and Japanese war films

[Bernardi-Buralli]

Just a quick p.s. to this message--Ichikawa remade Harp of Burma in color in
1985, it's interesting to compare the two versions in the context of their
respective release dates.

Joanne Bernardi

> From: "Tani Miki" <tmiki at jftor.org>
> Reply-To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
> Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2001 14:59:32 -0400
> To: <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
> Subject: RE: Pearl Harbour and Japanese war films
> 
> Gavin,
> 
> In case you were not aware, Kon Ichikawa made two films (but prior to the
> last 20 years), Fires on the Plain (1959) and Harp of Burma (1956), both of
> which are set in the last days of the war.  A Cinematheque Ontario-organised
> retrospective of Kon Ichikawa's work will tour North America this coming
> year, starting in Toronto this July.
> 
> Tani
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
> [mailto:owner-KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu]On Behalf Of Gavin Rees
> Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2001 1:52 PM
> To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
> Subject: Pearl Harbour and Japanese war films
> 
> 
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I was wondering if anybody had been following the debate about Pearl Harbour
> in Tokyo. Has the film's reported re-versioning for a Japanese audience
> caused any stirs in the press? Have the right-wingers come out to attack or
> perhaps to defend the film?
> 
> There was an interesting article in the Guardian in the UK written by the
> writer Ian Buruma. In it he notes how the film's indifference to the enemy
> echoes strangely the way that most of Japan's Second World War propaganda
> films had very little to say about the enemy, but rather concentrated on
> finding soldiers who could be lauded as role models.
> 
> Buruma's article is at:
> 
> http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,497998,00.html
> 
> I was also wondering if anybody knew of Japanese film made in the last 20
> years, apart from Oshima's "Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence" that dealt with
> the war. I am assuming that it is a no go area, and that it is almost
> impossible to deal with the subject  in Japanese fictional film. (Germany of
> course has done much better. Das Boot, Heimat etc...)
> 
> Gavin
>