Shibata's ARMED ROBBERY

[Roland Domenig]

in their book 'the japanese film' richie and anderson mixed up asano and
shibata, in his most recent book richie corrected this mistake. no writer is
immune of making mistakes - and richie is no exception. this is probably
also true of richie's statement that miike's film RAINY DOG is a kind of
'remake' of shibata's film. (this idea was also taken up by chuck stephens
in an article on miike: http://www.laweekly.com/ink/01/52/film-stephens.php)
i guess this was your starting point, Tom, wasn't it?

komatsu hiroshi discusses shibata's film INAZUMA GOTO in his essay 'some
characteristics of japanese cinema before  world war I' in 'reframing
japanese cinema. authorship, genre, history' (a. nolletti, d. desser, ed.,
indiana univ. press, 1992, ) as an example for the lack of the idea of film
fiction among the spectators of the late 19th century. this is certainly not
true about movie-goers of the late 20th century.


roland domenig
institute of east asian studies
vienna university
    
  


> I assume this is the film you are asking about Tom - but it wasn't Shibata
> According to Richie: "Following Shibata's successful lead, others began
> entering the [filmmaking] field. Amongst these was Shiro Asano, of the
> Konishiroku Photographic Store. At the request of a Shimpa troupe that
> desired publicity he filmed the climax of one of their current plays, Scene
> of the Lightning Robber's Being Arrested (Inazuma Goto Hobaku no Ba). This
> was shown in 1899, at the Tokyo Engi-za, a theatre which showed Shimpa by
> day and foreign films by night" pg 26, Japanese Film: Art and Industry