Bordwell on Nippon: Liebe und Leidenschaft in Japan

[David Lewis]

you can search for Rikouran in d-addicts
seems the torrents are still alive

I agree that it's much better that what one could have expected from bubbly
Ueto Aya

David Lewis

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "J.sharp" <j.sharp at hpo.net>
To: <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 2:08 PM
Subject: Re: Bordwell on Nippon: Liebe und Leidenschaft in Japan


> Can you tell me more about this please - I never heard about it before.
>
> Thanks
> Jasper
>
> "I've watched the first part of the recent fairly lengthy film biography
of
> Yamaguchi, starring Ueto Aya, which is fairly good - DVD 2, which I've not
> yet seen, is about Yamaguchi's time in Shanghai, and I'll have to see if
> Kawakita is portrayed as a key player."
>
> --
> Midnight Eye: The Latest and Best in Japanese Cinema
> www.midnighteye.com
>
> ===
>
> Jasper Sharp's myspace page: www.myspace.com/jaspersharp
>
>
>
> --------- Original Message --------
> From: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
> To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
<KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
> Subject: Re: Bordwell on Nippon: Liebe und Leidenschaft in Japan
> Date: 25/07/07 08:31
>
> >
> > There is some valuable background information in English about these
early
> Japanese-German film connections in Janine Hansen's article
&quot;Celluloid
> Competition: Japanese-German Film Relations, 1929-1945&quot; in the book
> Cinema and the Swastika, pp. 187-197. It would be great if this article
> could be expanded into a book.
> >
> > There's also interesting information about Kawakita Nagamasa in Sato
> Tadao's Nihon Eiga Shi, vol. 2, pp. 123-128. Kawakita was so well-known
for
> his film deals with the French and the Germans that he became a key
manager
> in the Japanese-Chinese film industry, mostly based in Shanghai, under the
> Japanese Occupation. Though answerable to the Japanese military
authorities,
> he seems to have played a fairly positive role - letting the Chinese make
> films pretty much as they wished, some of them even having some
> anti-Occupation themes hidden in them.
> >
> > At the end of the war in 1945, according to Sato, Kawakita also seems to
> have played a role in trying to keep his film crews and actors from being
> pubished as collaborators with the Japanese Occupation. Also according to
> Sato, Kawakita gave testimony which helped keep Yamaguchi Yoshiko/Ri
> Koran/Shirley Yamaguchi from being imprisoned or executed as a
collaborator,
> and he and Yamaguchi went back to Japan together.
> >
> > I've watched the first part of the recent fairly lengthy film biography
of
> Yamaguchi, starring Ueto Aya, which is fairly good - DVD 2, which I've not
> yet seen, is about Yamaguchi's time in Shanghai, and I'll have to see if
> Kawakita is portrayed as a key player.
> >
> > Michael McCaskey
> > Georgetown Univ.
> > Wash DC
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Mark Nornes &lt;amnornes at umich.edu&gt;
> > Date: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 1:21 am
> > Subject: Bordwell on Nippon: Liebe und Leidenschaft in Japan
> >
> > &gt; I was reading David Bordwell's blog entry mourning the passing on
> &gt; Edward Yang and came across his fascinating description of a film
&gt;
> that just showed at Cinema Ritrovato (dated July 6).
> > &gt; &gt; _
> > &gt; &gt; In the early 1930s, Japanese companies explored the
possibility
> of &gt; &gt; exporting their films to Europe and the US. One result of
these
>  &gt; initiatives was Nippon: Liebe und Leidenschaft in Japan, a 1932
&gt;
> German compilation created by Carl Koch. It originally consisted &gt; of
> &gt; three films from the Shochiku studio, condensed and supplied with
&gt;
> German intertitles. The original films were silent, so, oddly &gt; enough,
> &gt; synced Japanese dialogue was added.
> > &gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; In the version screened here, only two episodes were
> presented. &gt; What  &gt; beauties they were! Since many of the 1920s and
> 1930s Japanese &gt; films  &gt; that survive look quite weatherbeaten, it
> was wonderful to see, in &gt; &gt; the print from the Cin?math?que Suisse,
> how gorgeous quite &gt; ordinary  &gt; movies from this era could be.
> > &gt; &gt; The first story, Kaito samimaro (orig. 1928), deals with a
young
>  &gt; samurai rescuing his beloved from the clutches of a corrupt &gt;
> priest.  &gt; Brisk and beautifully shot, it came to the sort of frothing
> &gt; swordplay  &gt; climax typical of the period-rapid cutting, dynamic
> tracking, and  &gt; slashing assaults aimed at the camera. Kagaribi
(1928),
> about a &gt; young  &gt; vassal betrayed by his corrupt lord, likewise
ended
> with a &gt; protracted  &gt; action scene capped by a jolting climax. A
> prolonged tracking shot &gt; &gt; follows the young man's former lover as
> she backs away from him, &gt; but  &gt; then we cut to a full shot. With a
> single stroke he kills her,  &gt; jaggedly ripping a paper door in his
> follow-through. Both stand  &gt; motionless for a moment before she falls.
A
> conventional finish, &gt; but  &gt; no less eye-smiting for that. For more
> on the power of this action-&gt; &gt; cinema tradition, see an earlier
entry
> on this site.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
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