Ueto Aya, Yamaguchi Yoshiko, Rikouran
Michael McCaskey
mccaskem
Wed Jul 25 19:00:33 EDT 2007
Rikouran is a Tokyo TV movie, 249 minutes plus 45 minutes of special features. The DVD box says it was broadcast Feb. 11-12, 2007.
The script was written by Takeyama Yo 竹山洋 based on the memoirs of Yamaguchi Yoshiko『「李香蘭」を生きて・私の履歴書』（日本経済新聞社刊）
The director was Horikawa Tonko 堀川とんこう, who has mostly been a TV director ? but he did direct a 2001 Genji movie, 千年の恋　ひかる源氏物語.
The first DVD presents Yamaguchi?s life growing up as a member of a Japanese family resident in Manchuria. Her family is pictured as living among Chinese, Russians, and other Japanese expatriates, and not very closely connected with the Japanese authorities or military, who are generally presented as oppressive and often brutal.
Ueto Aya sings well, and sings and speaks in Chinese at times - either somehow she already knew some Chinese, or she has studied up pretty well. (I studied and taught Chinese for some while myself, so I think I?m qualified to judge.)
The first DVD introduces Kawashima Yoshiko (1907-1948), who was actually a member of the Manchu Imperial Family, but grew up as an adopted daughter in a Japanese family. She was part of the Japanese military intelligence organization in China, and led a very troubled life. Yamaguchi and Kawashima knew each other, and had a bond in their similar binational identities, but Yamaguchi is presented as an entertainer, who did not want to get involved in Kawashima?s complicated life. (I wrote encyclpedia bios of both of them, and their portrayals seem fairly accurate.)
Kawashima is played by Kikugawa Rei 菊川怜, who has been in many TV movies and dramas, and appeared in the movie Gojira: Final Wars (?) in 2004.
Kawakita is played by Sawamura Ikki 沢村一樹, who is mostly a TV actor, though he did the voice of David, Stephenson?s assistant, in Steamboy.
The official site is:
http://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/rikouran/
The film has the ?look? of 1940s and 1950s China ? or rather, at least the look of PRC Chinese color feature films of the late 1950s and early 1960s. I saw a fair number of them in theaters in Japan then ? some were quite well done, and the cinematography was good, but generally the color was ?pale,? with light mostly like that of early morning. I was reminded of that as I watched DVD 1. (A Chinese prof. I had told me that some Chinese cinematographers who had worked in Hollywood went back to the PRC and worked there in those days.)
The DVD was released in April 2007 by Kadokawa Pictures, and the bar code no. is 4-988111-283528.
I?m now highly motivated to watch DVD 2. DVD 1 is the Manchurian story, and DVD 2 is the Shanghai story.
As most of you know, Yamaguchi co-starred with Mifune in Kurosawa?s Scandal, and it?s possible to see her in the Kurosawa film pretty much as she was at the peak of her acting career. She was indeed very vivacious and striking.
By the way, if anyone knows whether any of those 1950s and 1960s PRC films are available on DVD, and/or whether some of those Japanese-managed films made in Manchuria and then also in Shanghai are available on DVD, I?d very much like to know.
Regards,
Michael McCaskey
Georgetown Univ.
----- Original Message -----
From: "J.sharp" <j.sharp at hpo.net>
Date: 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
> "CelluloidCompetition: Japanese-German Film Relations, 1929-
> 1945" in the book
> Cinema and the Swastika, pp. 187-197. It would be great if this
> articlecould 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 <amnornes at umich.edu>
> > Date: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 1:21 am
> > Subject: Bordwell on Nippon: Liebe und Leidenschaft in Japan
> >
> > > I was reading David Bordwell's blog entry mourning the
> passing on
> > Edward Yang and came across his fascinating description of a
> film >
> that just showed at Cinema Ritrovato (dated July 6).
> > > > _
> > > > In the early 1930s, Japanese companies explored the
> possibilityof > > exporting their films to Europe and the
> US. One result of these
> > initiatives was Nippon: Liebe und Leidenschaft in Japan, a
> 1932 >
> German compilation created by Carl Koch. It originally consisted
> > of
> > three films from the Shochiku studio, condensed and supplied
> with >
> German intertitles. The original films were silent, so, oddly >
> enough,
> > synced Japanese dialogue was added.
> > > > > > In the version screened here, only two
> episodes were
> presented. > What > beauties they were! Since many of the
> 1920s and
> 1930s Japanese > films > that survive look quite
> weatherbeaten, it
> was wonderful to see, in > > the print from the Cin?math?que
> Suisse,how gorgeous quite > ordinary > movies from this era
> could be.
> > > > The first story, Kaito samimaro (orig. 1928), deals
> with a young
> > samurai rescuing his beloved from the clutches of a corrupt >
> priest. > Brisk and beautifully shot, it came to the sort of
> frothing> swordplay > climax typical of the period?rapid
> cutting, dynamic
> tracking, and > slashing assaults aimed at the camera.
> Kagaribi (1928),
> about a > young > vassal betrayed by his corrupt lord,
> likewise ended
> with a > protracted > action scene capped by a jolting
> climax. A
> prolonged tracking shot > > follows the young man?s former
> lover as
> she backs away from him, > but > then we cut to a full
> shot. With a
> single stroke he kills her, > jaggedly ripping a paper door in his
> follow-through. Both stand > motionless for a moment before
> she falls. A
> conventional finish, > but > no less eye-smiting for that.
> For more
> on the power of this action-> > cinema tradition, see an
> earlier entry
> on this site.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
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