2002 box office

[Roland Domenig]

> 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.

eiren has no 'clear' definition on this. japanese films (hoga) are basically
films where japanese corporations (hojin) play a central role in production.
in contrast to europe, where coproductions are common and questions of
origin can pose a problem, there are only a few international coproductions
in japan. 
however, as far as films are concerned that were made with foreign capital
such as oshima nagisa's AI NO KORIIDA, they are usually counted as 'foreign
films', though of course nobody doubts that oshima's film IS a japanese
film.        

> 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?

the lists of eiren and jmdb are not identical for several reasons: the japan
movie database lists for example each part of an omnibus film as individual
film. a short film collection like for instance JAM FILMS has thus 7 entries
in the database, whereas eiren counts it as one film. i don't know where the
jmdb takes its information but sometimes they miss films (i also noticed
several wrong credits especially with older films, but generally it is is a
reliable source). the two films of takahashi yoichiro for instance (MIZU NO
NAKA NO HACHIGATSU and NICHIYOBI WA OWARANAI) are not included in the jmdb
although the first film won high critical appraisal and was shown at many
film festivals around the world. it was also screened in japan on several
occasions, but i'm not sure whether it had an official cinema release.

the cinema release is an important criteria for eiren. for a regular cinema
release a film needs an eirin-mark and i guess the eiren-data are based on
eirin's data. since there are practically no cinemas that show films that
didn't pass the eirin inspection, the eirin-number is a good indicator for
how many films have been released in a year. however, this does not include
the quite vast number of jishu eiga, that are shown on a small scale at very
different places (city halls, festivals, universities, etc.).

the eiren list also doesn't necessarily correspond with kinema junpo's
listing. kinema junpo basically lists all films (excl. 8mm films) that were
projected on a screen for more than 7 days in a row to a paying audience.
this also includes anime, documentaries, short films, re-releases of old
films and screenings outside of regular cinemas (e.g. at city halls), but
not films that were shown only once or twice say at a film festival. kinejun
used to list only films shown in tokyo, but last year they also included a
new section for films shown in the provinces. this reflects the many local
activities and the fact that the japanese cinema has become less
centralistic and more diverse than it used to be.


roland domenig
institute of east asian studies
vienna university