[KineJapan] Daido Eiga

Thu Apr 29 04:40:58 EDT 2021

Thank you Quentin and Alex for answering my original response.
Indeed, this does seem like a dead-end (or maybe a fascinating digression) from my line of research, which was definitely in the context of what was happening in Kyoto in 1946, in which the name Ikeda Tomiyasu cropped up.

best
Jasper

The Creeping Garden<http://www.creepinggarden.com/> - A Real-Life Science-Fiction Story about Slime Moulds and the People Who Work With them, directed by Tim Grabham and Jasper Sharp.
Available now on Dual-Format Blu-ray/DVD from Arrow Films<https://arrowfilms.com/product-detail/the-creeping-garden-dual-format/FCD1435>.
The book, The Creeping Garden: Irrational Encounters with Plasmodial Slime Moulds is out now from Alchimia Publishing<http://www.alchimiapublishing.com/creeping-garden/>.
"A surprising investigation of perception, thought and life itself", Nicolas Rapold, The New York Times<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/30/movies/review-the-creeping-garden-on-the-wonders-of-the-slime-mold.html>.
"An out-of-left-field nerdy delight", John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter<https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/creeping-garden-fantasia-review-724416>.
"Strange, eccentric, diverting", Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian<https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/mar/09/creeping-garden-review-slime-mould-film>.

________________________________
From: KineJapan <kinejapan-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> on behalf of quentin turnour via KineJapan <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu>
Sent: 29 April 2021 04:41
To: Japanese Cinema Discussion Forum <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu>
Cc: quentin turnour <unkleque at yahoo.com.au>
Subject: Re: [KineJapan] Daido Eiga

Alex as always has done his research. Datong Film Company is a fairly familiar name in the post-war Cantonese-language cinema, with surviving films held in the Hong Kong Film Archive occasionally emerging in past retrospectives at the Archive's own venue, or back in the heyday of the Hong Kong International Film Festival. As the wiki entry notes, the film that gets the most attention is 細路祥 / MY SON A-CHEUNG aka THE KID, as its the oldest surviving film with Bruce Lee.

I'm not aware of any Japanese connection. But it wouldn't be the first Cantonese producer to have had a business partnership with a Japanese studio in the 1950s and '60s.

Jasper, if this is not a research dead-end, and still of interest because its Cantonese, the Hong Kong film heritage community is unsurprisingly pretty rancorous these days. But contact someone like Bede Cheung at the HK office of L'Immagine Ritrovata or Sam Ho (somewhere in the Seattle these days I think) if you still want background on the company who can draw on Cantonese-language sources.

Quentin Turnour
National Archives of Australia.

On Thursday, 29 April 2021, 6:08:46 am AEST, Alexander Jacoby via KineJapan <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:

Hi Jasper,

You obviously have the context of what you've been researching, which I don't, so forgive me for asking... but are you absolutely sure it's Kyoto- (or even-Japan)-based? The first two characters read in Chinese are Datong, a city in Shanxi Prefecture (a few hours' drive west of Beijing).

Chinese film pioneer Zhang Shichuan (1889-1953 or 1890-1954, depending on the source consulted) is said in the Historical Dictionary of Chinese Cinema to have worked for a Shanghai-based company called Datong Film Company late in his career, after WWII. This was a problematic moment in his career; he had worked in wartime Shanghai for a Japanese-controlled studio and courted accusations of treason after the city was liberated, although he was never indicted.

I found quite a few references online to a 大同影片公司 and then realised it does have an English language Wikipedia entry suggesting that it started making films in 1948:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datong_Film_Company

Although that entry claims it shut down in 1953, there seems also to have been a 大同影業公司 active in Taiwan from the 1950s. See

http://hkmdb.com/db/companies/view.mhtml?id=2718

which includes links to several posters where the name is visible.

Searching "Datong Eiga" in kanji, within quotation marks, also brings up a reference on a Japanese-language website to the same Chinese studio.

Best,

ALEX

On Wed, 28 Apr 2021 at 16:10, Jasper Sharp via KineJapan <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu>> wrote:
Hi everyone,
I have a quick question for those of you who might know a little about Kyoto film history. Does anyone know of a film company called Daido Eiga (大同映画) that was around circa 1946/47? The name came up in something I'm researching, and it seems to be a thing, but I can't find anything of substance about it on the internet.
Thanks for your help.
best
Jasper

The Creeping Garden<http://www.creepinggarden.com/> - A Real-Life Science-Fiction Story about Slime Moulds and the People Who Work With them, directed by Tim Grabham and Jasper Sharp.
Available now on Dual-Format Blu-ray/DVD from Arrow Films<https://arrowfilms.com/product-detail/the-creeping-garden-dual-format/FCD1435>.
The book, The Creeping Garden: Irrational Encounters with Plasmodial Slime Moulds is out now from Alchimia Publishing<http://www.alchimiapublishing.com/creeping-garden/>.
"A surprising investigation of perception, thought and life itself", Nicolas Rapold, The New York Times<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/30/movies/review-the-creeping-garden-on-the-wonders-of-the-slime-mold.html>.
"An out-of-left-field nerdy delight", John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter<https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/creeping-garden-fantasia-review-724416>.
"Strange, eccentric, diverting", Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian<https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/mar/09/creeping-garden-review-slime-mould-film>.

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