KINEJAPAN digest 2662

[mjraine at uchicago.edu]

>________________
>Date: Mon,  8 Jun 2009 14:33:08 -0400 (EDT)
>From: <mccaskem at georgetown.edu>  
>Subject: Re: Question re 1940 Toho Musical Film Extravaganza  
>To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
>
>Many Thanks! I'm in the process of preparing course material
for the Fall, this 
>part re Kurosawa's early years working under Yamamoto Kajiro,
and I only know 
>about Enoken in that context, and as a performer in "Tiger's
Tail." From the 
>pictures I'd seen of him, it seemed to me that somehow he
must have put on 
>weight just for this role. Now, thanks to you, I know that
was this other 
>performer, Kishiir.
>

Quite a bit of weight! As I recall, Kishii Akira started out
as a sumo wrestler... I think he's particularly cute in Ginza
kankan musume, an interesting film in it's own right and yet
more evidence for significant continuities between prewar,
wartime, and postwar Japanese cinema...

There's an article on Songoku in Iwamoto Kenji's Eiga to
daitoakyoeiken, and a short but informative section in
Furukawa Takahisa's Senjika no Nihon eiga. Furukawa's point is
that these films were popular for the singing and dancing and
the authorities were disappointed that more serious films were
not more popular, at home and abroad. But perhaps in a broader
sense we could still see the film as part of a "Greater East
Asia propaganda film effort." 

Yamamoto Kajiro's autobiography lists the film as "ichibu
chakushoku" which I take to mean colored (tinted or toned) and
not a reference to color film stock. In fact, I don't know of
any feature film shot in color before Karumen kokyo ni kaeru.
Does anyone know different? 

Michael 

Michael Raine
Assistant Professor in Japanese Cinema
University of Chicago