Japanese Cinema Goes Global: Filmworkers' Journeys

Preface

TransAsia: Screen Cultures Edited by Koichi IWABUCHI and Chris BERRY What is Asia? What does it mean to be Asian? Who thinks they are Asian? How is “Asian-ness” produced? In Asia’s transnational public space, many kinds of cross-border connections proliferate , from corporate activities to citizen-to-citizen linkages, all shaped by media — from television series to action films, video piracy, and a variety of subcultures facilitated by internet sites and other computer-based cultures. Films are packaged at international film festivals and marketed by DVD companies as “Asian”, while the descendents of migrants increasingly identify themselves as “Asian”, then turn to “Asian” screen cultures to find themselves and their roots. As reliance on national frameworks becomes obsolete in many traditional disciplines, this series spotlights groundbreaking research on trans-border, screen-based cultures in Asia. Other titles in the series: The Chinese Exotic: Modern Diasporic Femininity, by Olivia Khoo East Asian Pop Culture: Analysing the Korean Wave, edited by Chua Beng Huat and Koichi Iwabuchi TV Drama in China, edited by Ying Zhu, Michael Keane, and Ruoyun Bai Cultural Studies and Cultural Industries in Northeast Asia: What a Difference a Region Makes, edited by Chris Berry, Nicola Liscutin, and Jonathan D. Mackintosh Horror to the Extreme: Changing Boundaries in Asian Cinema, edited by Jinhee Choi and Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano Cinema at the City’s Edge: Film and Urban Networks in East Asia, edited by Yomi Braester and James Tweedie Korean Masculinities and Transcultural Consumption: Yonsama, Rain, Oldboy, K-Pop Idols, by Sung Jung Series International Advisory Board: Ackbar Abbas (University of Hong Kong) Ien Ang (University of Western Sydney) Yomi Braester (Washington University) Stephen Chan (Lingnan University) Chua Beng-Huat (National University of Singapore) Ian Condry (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Dai Jinhua (Peking University) John Nguyet Erni (Lingnan University) Annette Hamilton (University of New South Wales) Rachel Harrison (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London) Gaik Cheng Khoo (Australian National University) Kim Kyung-Hyun (University of California, Irvine) Kim Soyoung (Korean National University of Arts) Helen Hok-Sze Leung (Simon Fraser University) Akira Mizuta Lippit (University of Southern California) Feii Lü (National Chengchi University) Lü Xinyu (Fudan University) Eric Ma (Chinese University of Hong Kong) Fran Martin (Melbourne University) Mouri Yoshitaka (Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music) Meaghan Morris (Lingnan University) Nam Inyoung (Dongseo University) Pang Laikwan (Chinese University of Hong Kong) Michael Raine (University of Chicago) Bérénice Reynaud (California Institute of the Arts) Lisa Rofel (University of California, Santa Cruz) Krishna Sen (Curtin University of Technology) Ubonrat Siriyuvasak (Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok) Eva Tsai (National Taiwan Normal University) Paola Voci (University of Otago) Yoshimi Shunya (Tokyo University) Zhang Zhen (New York University) Japanese Cinema Goes Global Filmworkers’ Journeys Yoshiharu Tezuka Hong Kong University Press 14/F Hing Wai Centre 7 Tin Wan Praya Road Aberdeen Hong Kong www.hkupress.org© Hong Kong University Press 2012 ISBN 978-988-8083-32-9 (Hardback) ISBN 978-988-8083-33-6 (Paperback) All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed and bound by Goodrich Int’l Printing Co., Ltd. in Hong Kong, China Preface vii Acknowledgements xi Note on Romanization of Asian Names and Scripts xiii Introduction 1 Chapter One: Japanese National Identity and “Banal” 9 Cosmopolitalization The Crisis of National Identity 9 The Formation of Different Types of Cosmopolitan Subjectivity 13 Chapter Two: Internationalization of Japanese Cinema — 25 How Japan Was Different from the West and above Asia before Globalization The Occupation, Japanese National Cinema and Industry 29 A New Set of Lies — Post-war National Subjectivity 35 Legitimizing Cosmopolitanism and Self-Orientalism 40 Technology and Japan’s Oriental-Orientalism in Asia 51 The Golden Age of the Hong Kong-Japanese Cinematic Interchange 60 The Emergence of Resistance Cosmopolitanism 67 Chapter Three: Globalization of Film Finance — The Actually 75 Existing Cosmopolitanisms of Japanese Film Producers Banal Cosmopolitanization and the Mini-Theatres 80 Globalizing Japanese Cinema — Reticent Legitimizing Cosmopolitanism 89 Contents ...