daughter of the samurai

Roland Domenig roland.domenig
Tue Aug 13 07:34:54 EDT 2002


the german title 'die tochter des samurai' was probably influenced by etsu
inagaki sugimoto's novel 'a daughter of the samurais'. a german translation
of the novel was published in berlin in 1935. judging from the several
reprints of the novel it seemingly was quite popular.

as for itami's version, one can only speculate why it is shelved today.
i heard that the kawakita memorial film institute holds a copy that they
don't want to show. i guess they don't want to spoil itami's reputation with
this film, a film, that itami didn't want to make in the first place but was
rather forced to make. janine pointed out that the film was a big commercial
success at the time, but it was also a critical failure. while some critics
politely tried to find a good word for fanck's version (the skilful mountain
scenes, but no no, not the ideology), itami's version was mercilessly
criticised. he was blamed for the failure of the project that many had hoped
will be a door-opener for japanese films to the international market. the
little that is remembered when talking about the film is the blunt
nazi-iddeology of the fanck version. since the film was produced by kawakita
nagamasa, who agreed with fanck upon the 'volk ohne raum' theme (a popular
nazi-slogan at the time and after the japanese invasion of manchuria popular
in japan as well), the kawakita mamorial film institute that after all was
founded by kawakita and features his name is understandably not very keen to
draw too much attention to the film and its background. janine's masterly
study 'arnold fancks die tochter des samurai. nationalsozialistische
propaganda und japanische filmpolitik' (wiesbaden: harrassowitz 1997) gives
a detailed account of this background, the production and the reception of
the film(s). if you can read german you should try to get a copy.
    
(by the way, when kawakita later became director of the newly formed china
motion picture company in shanghai, he commissioned and produced the
documentary 'driven people' about jewish refugees that escaped from nazi
germany to shanghai. the film was directed by a woman director from the
refugee community but it was never finished because the outbreak of the
pacific war put an end to the project.)


roland domenig
institute of east asian studies
vienna university

  








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