2002 box office

[Aaron Gerow]

>it may be a stupid question but I wonder what is the criteria for
>classifying films into Japanese vs. foreign. If it has to do with the
>funding capital of the film, I wonder where would (transnational) joint
>productions fit in.

I don't know how Eiren defines it (Mark?), but since Japanese companies 
are still being slow to jump onto the international co-production 
bandwagon, there are not too many films that cause problems. My 
impression is that any film with significant Japanese money that is 
mostly in the Japanese language is hoga. The Last Samurai will probably 
not be hoga, however. But the Momantai films were classified as hoga (at 
least in any video store I've been to). 

>And what about Asian films? In my understanding, the kanji in the word
>"youga" (the term used for foreign films) means Western rather than foreign
>and, I am not so sure about it, but I think that in the videostore close to
>my place Chinese films, for example, are classified under the "houga"
>category.

Non-Japanese Asian films are definitely put into the yoga category. Your 
videostore may just be odd.

Do note that yoga can sometimes be a purely institutional phenomenon. 
Especially some of the major theater chains are divided between yoga-kei 
and hoga-kei, and thus you sometimes see Japanese films being released 
at, say, "Toho yoga-kei" theaters.

>I found a list of the films released in 2002 on the "Japanese Movie
>Database" (www.jmdb.ne.jp) but the are 4 more than in the figures provided
>by Eiren. Is there a way to find their list of 293 Japanese films?

Note that the JMDB sometimes includes experimental shorts that were shown 
in small theaters. I don't believe Eiren includes those. The JMDB is also 
probably not up-to-date on 2002 yet, so more films can be expected to 
appear 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
Fax: 81-45-339-3171