Date: Sat, 16 May 98
It was also reported in the papers that
the Chinese _People's Daily_ published an editorial article on the 14th
severely criticizing the production of _Puraido: Unmei no toki_, the Toei-released
film that focuses on Tojo Hideki and the Tokyo war crimes trails. The film,
which opens on May 23rd, has already sparked criticism inside Japan for
reportedly depicting Tojo favorably.
The Chinese paper declared (translating
from the Japanese) that "fabricating this kind of movie is a threat to
the people of Asia and a challenge against international society." Entitled
"The Beautification of War Criminals Cannot Be Excused", the article said
that "the filming of _Pride_ is not an accident, but a product of the expansion
of right-wing forces in Japanese society."
While I haven't seen the film, the fact
that one of the first previews was for LDP members and that the print ads
basically construct Tojo as a Japanese Jefferson Smith (the top blurb:
"Tojo vs. America: A sole individual's fight with a nation's pride at stake";
and the "quote" from Tojo: "I will fight. At this rate, Japan and the Japanese
will be rendered the worst of nations and peoples."), my impression is
that the People's Daily is not too far off the mark.
Anyone (such as Mark) seen the film yet?
Aaron Gerow
YNU
Date: Sun, 17 May 1998
It will also be interesting to follow what
Chinese filmmakers may have to say on the topic. Xie Jin, for example,
previously in _People's Daily_, has spoken of what he perceives as Japan's
"cultural impotence".
Jean Williams
Date: Sun, 17 May 98
Well, I told you about this movie when
I first joined back in February. I haven't seen the finished movie, but
I have a copy of the final draft of the script, which I'll be happy to
copy for you if you'll send me your address and, say, 1000 yen of bookstore
coupons.
I would say it's just as bad as the worst
you can imagine. On the other hand, I can't imagine it being popular with
young people, who would be the only group unlikely to have a formed opinion
on the topic.
The Wall Street Journal already covered
it, too, on April 30th, and although the article seemed to be based more
on the press conference announcing the movie than on the movie itself,
they got it about right, I thought. Bizarrely, they said that Tsugawa Masahiko
was the "Robert DeNiro of Japan," while I think of him as a hack TV actor.
Does he have any fans?
Anyway, free publicity is what the filmmakers
want and need, so I say, ignore it. If you do go to see it, I'm the handsome
middle-aged American officer behind the witness stand who is giving the
finger to the camera all the time.
David Hopkins in Tenri
Date: Sun, 17 May 98
Thanks to David Hopkins for his post on
_Pride_. I agree with him that, as consumers, we would be best off ignoring
_Pride_, as scholars, there are still some issues we might want to pursue
further.
The Mainichi this morning ran a rather
long special report on the controversy. While covering both sides of the
argument, the piece, in summarizing the movie, says, "The film, taking
the point of view of Tojo, emphasizes that Japan was forced into fighting
World War Two in order to defend itself and to liberate Asia from colonialism,
and that the treatment of the Nanking Massacre in the Tokyo Trials was
based on rumor and exaggeration and used by the Allies to censure Japanese
militarism."
The film was made for a very large budget
of 1,500,000,000 yen to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Higashi Nippon
Hausu, a housing company based on Morioka. HNH paid for 90% of the budget
with Toei, which is distributing the film, covering only the remaining
amount. HNH's former chairman, Nakamura Isao, is the chair of the right-wing
political party, "Seinen Jiyuto," and started the "Gyokakai" in order to
"rethink Japanese traditional culture and maintain pride in our history."
The film's production committee is headed by the noted right-wing foreign
policy expert, Kase Hideaki. The president of HNH, Asano Katsuaki, said
that "We thought we had a duty to transmit a correct historical consciousness
and to bring back pride in being Japanese."
However, when Toei's labor union read the
script, it declared that the film "makes a hero out of Tojo and warps history."
Getting support from the industry wide labor union, Eiga Engeki Rodo Kumiai
Sorengo, the union gained supporters from various fields and launched on
April 20th the "Society to Criticize the Film Pride" which has called on
Toei to cancel the release of the film.
Director Ito Shunya has defended himself
by saying that "I am neither on the right nor the left. The Tokyo Trials
were a continuation of the war after the war, and I depicted Tojo from
the perspective that he was the one who best fought that battle."
The Mainichi underlines in a sidebar that
films like _Pride_ are a manifestation of the weak position of the film
industry. Despite hits last year like _Paradise Lost_ and _Evangelion_,
Toei revised its projected profits for this year down from 1.8 billion
to 800 million yen. In such a state, the industry is more likely to rely
on films largely paid for by outside sources. Thus Toei released one film
last year paid for by the dubious religous cult, "Kofuku no Kagaku," and
this year opened an animated film paid for by the Otani-ha of Jodo Shinshu.
Such films make economic sense for Toei: they obtain films for their theaters
with little risk and often get the producing side to buy up the required
number of advance tickets. In the case of _Pride_, HNH bought up 900,000
advance tickets (which it will presumably sell (or force on) its business
partners and employees), so that there is absolutely no chance the film
will not be a box-office success. (This is another reason to question the
advance ticket system.)
Aaron Gerow
YNU
Date: Mon, 18 May 1998
Actually, my sister-in-law works for a
plastics company that sells flooring and wallpaper to Higashi Nihon House
and they were pressured to buy half-price tickets for all of their employees
as a show of corporate loyalty. In the last few weeks, HNH stock has declined
from 650 to around 570. Maybe they blew too much money? There is no reliable
info available from companies that trade over-the-counter, only insiders
have info.
David Hopkins
Date: Mon, 18 May 1998
PRIDE is not the first example of a postwar
Japanese film sponsored by a political pressure group, since both the left
(perhaps especially the left and the right have been in the background
of numerous films. On the right, the Shin Toho spectacular EMPEROR MEIJI
AND THE RUSSO JAPANESE WAR (MEIJI TENNO TO NICHIRO DAI SENSOU,1957), directed
by the rightist-leaning Watanabe Kunio, springs to mind as one significant
example. In addition to its nearly hagiographic portrayal of the Emperor
himself, the film resurrects several of the "bidan" (or "tales of military
virtue"--in this case the stories of Lt. Col. Hirose and Corporal Sugino)
which had been featured in the pre-war and wartime National Language (Kokugo)
and Ethics (Shushin) textbooks and which had been expurgated under the
direct orders of SCAP. One apparent parallel between the MEIJI film and
PRIDE is that they both were made by production companies facing severe
economic difficulties (although MEIJI was a major hit, Shin Toho bellied
up four years later), receiving important funding from non-film industry,
politically- motivated sources.
As far as I know, however, PRIDE presents
the most overt postwar example of a tendency which was very common during
the 1930s--the direct sponsoring by a rightwing pressure group of a film
to promote its political ideals and/or program. In the thirties such films
tended to be "documentaries" (but there were dramas, or at least "dramatizations,"
as well). Of course in those days, the government itself eagerly pushed
the major film companies to turn out features which propagated official
thinking on domestic and international issues, something they did by providing
often lavish financial backing. But since the regular film companies contained
few ideologues of either the right or the left, the direct influence of
pure ideology on their films, even in those days, can probably be discounted.
Patriotic themes--usually set in the context of war films--- tended to
be exploited commercially until they were played out, whereupon they were
dropped.
Occasionally, the Army or Navy would hire
a production company outright to make a propaganda picture. As experienced
moulders of public opinion, the film units connected with the major newspapers
were often favored. For example, the Army hired Mainichi to make Defend
Manchuria (Mamore Manshu, 1932), a film of documentary footage interspersed
with dramatized sequences which argued that Manchuria was part of Japan's
"lifeline" (the latter being a key phrases of the era). General Araki Sadao
(leader of the radical Kodo-ha or "Imperial Way" faction inside the Army)
used non-official funds to commission one of the most famous, the part-talkie
Crisis-Time Japan (Hijoji Nippon, 1933), also produced by the Mainichi
film unit. There, Araki appears on screen in full military uniform to lecture
the nation on "the truth about Japan's present-day situation at home and
abroad." What follows is a long, high-blown oration on the divine mission
of the nation's military. Oover a dozen years later the film would be introduced
as "evidence" at the Tokyo War Crimes trial. Quite apart from such officially-
and quasi-officially-commissioned propaganda pieces, "civilian" political
pressure groups (the pre-war equivalents of the Nakamura Isao's present-day
"Seinen Jiyuto") did manage to have their say as investors in specific
film projects. Their impact was comparatively great in the case of small,
"independent production" companies; many of them, like Taiheiyo or Akazawa
Kinema, were quite tiny indeed. Independent production companies centered
around a single star, such as Arashi Kanjuro or Bando Tsumasaburo, were
particularly favored for the production of drama films. But these were
often relationships fraught with discord, since the stars usually refused
to become mere puppets.
Such was the case of Bando Tsumasaburo
and his company. In February 1931, a public mudslinging contest broke out
between the Kokusuikai (National Essence Society) and the infamous Kokuryukai
(Black Dragon Society) over which of the two factions had the controlling
interest in the company. Bando insisted that neither of them did. Howling
with injured dignity, the Kokuryukai leveled a blast at him through the
newspapers: "Bando owes our society a great debt of gratitude. After his
resignation from Shochiku, we invested seventy throusand yen in his new
company with the understanding that it would exert itself in the task of
national education through films made in line with Kokuryukai principles."
At least part of the problem was that Bando's popularity was sagging badly
and he was having serious difficulty making any films at all.
By the late thirties, with the China Incident
now in progress, the "itaku" (commissioned) film went into decline, partly
because of the 1939 Film Law, partly because of the enforced "consolidation"
of documentary film companies in 1940 and partly, quite simply, because
the public never responded very favorably to them in the first place. In
the case of Gen. Araki's Crisis-Time Japan, the public responded with a
sneer. The very term "Crisis-time" became the butt of numerous jokes, one
of them running thusly: Question: What time is it? Answer: It's Crisis-time!"
It seems to me that the production background
of PRIDE can be seen in the context of this 1930s pre-war phenomenon. Certainly
it provides an interesting precedent. Whether it signifies a serious revival
of the ultra-right is still open to question. Still, there are worrisome
straws in the wind. One of these is the steadily growing influence of Fujioka
Nobukatsu's "Atarashii Rekishi Kyokasho o Tsukuru Kai" (the Society for
the Preparation of New History Textbooks"), a vocal group seeking to eliminate
most references to the worst abuses during Japan's aggressive-militarist
past on the grounds that it signifies a peurile form of "self-maligning"
(jigyaku). In much the same vein as Nakamura Isao, they call instead for
school textbooks which "rethink Japanese traditional culture and maintain
pride in our history." Especially now that the New History Textbook Society
has gained the fervent backing of the extremely popular maverick manga-artist
Kobayashi Yoshinori (of "Goman-ism" fame), the numerous books put out by
the Society line the shelves of university bookshelves and the buzz word
"jigyaku" is known to most students. Mercifully however, it too has become
the occasional butt of wry humor (sot of like "Crisis-time"), especially
since "jigyaku" partakes somewhat in the significance of the English term,
"self-abuse."
Clearly, PRIDE shares to a great degree
in this "self-consolation" form of national history.
Peter B. High
Date: Tue, 19 May 1998
I went a screening of Pride today and had
the sense, for once, to arrive early. The Toei screening room was packed
with not only the usual industry types, but visitors in reserved seats
who looked to be of the WWII generation. I'll post my Japan Times review
later, but as for first impressions: the film is surprisingly well-made,
with a strong performance by Tsugawa Masahiko as Tojo, and not as crudely
propogandistic as its origins would suggest. Much of it consists of courtroom
and other scenes that are taken directly from the films of the Tokyo tribunal
and otherwise follow the historical record fairly faithfully. (The operative
word in this sentence is "fairly.") .
The main objects are to, first, humanize
Tojo as a self-sacrificing patriot, good family man and all-round decent,
if deeply conflicted, guy and, second, justify Japan's wartime policy as
contributing to the liberation of Asian peoples, mostly notably Indians,
laboring under the colonial yoke, while minimizing Japan's wartime atrocities
and maximizing the misdeeds and hypocrisy of her conquerors. The historical
viewpoint is highly selective and, especially for the majority of younger
Japanese who know next to zilch about their country's recent history, highly
misleading.
Is the film, as are so many maeuri ken
eiga, a turkey that, without its corporate life support, would be DOA at
the box office? The Westen media reports I've seen finesse this question,
because most of the reporters who wrote them (1) did not see the film or
(2) have no idea of how the market works in Japan. My own guess is that,
though the film's core audience is the same crowd that worships at Yasukuni
Shrine -- i.e, over fifties who lived through the war and its aftermath
-- it is also going to draw more than a fewer younger Japanese who buy
Kobayashi's "Gomanism" paperbacks, with their revisionist arguments against
the "official" history of the Nanjing Massacre, and dig Beat Takeshi's
sneers at craven politicians and bureaucrats who suck up to their American
overlords and crawl before Asian professional victims.
Far from being only the expensive hobbyhorse
of a wacko rightist businessman, "Pride" expresses sentiments that are
gaining ground here among not only ranters on sound trucks, but otherwise
ordinary Japanese.
After seeing the film, I asked a friend
in the Toei Kokusai-bu if Toei had any intention of selling it abroad.
The answer, as one might expect, was a resounding "no," though he said
he would be glad to oblige anyone interested in screening it. A middle-management
type who is not in the company union, he said emphatically that he "is
not ashamed" of the film and thinks it will "do well in the Japanese market."
He also added, half-jokingly, that rightists were "protecting the company"
from assault, though I didn't notice any khaki-clad punch perms anywhere
near the building.
Was Toei driven to investing and distributing
the film by balance sheets woes? Perhaps the lure of quick yen in tough
times made the greenlight decision easier, but Toei has an industry rep
as a "yakuza" company with right-wing tendencies. Their 1995 film commemorating
the 50th anniversary of the end of WW II, "Kike Wadatsumi no Koe" (Last
Friends) was the most blatantly nationalistic of any of the war movies
of that year. President Tan Takaiwa told me in an interview that he viewed
the film as a message to younger generation aimed at making them better
understand the glorious sacrifices of their forebearers. No wonder Toei
is presenting "Pride" with pride.
Mark Schilling
Date: Fri, 22 May 1998
PRIDE, the Toei film which apparently sings
the praises of wartime leader Tojo Hideki (unfortunately I haven't seen
it yet), has come up for discussion several times so far. In today's (5/22)
Mainichi Shimbun (evening edition) it was reviewed by critic Nojima Koichi
and I thought readers would be interested to see an example of how the
Japanese media views this film/phenomenon. Roughly translated, Nojima writes:
*************************************************************************************
"'PRIDE'--AN
UNDENIABLE SENSE OF AWKWARDNESS" Even before its release, PRIDE came under
attack from both the Chinese press and Toei's own trade union. Of course
this is because it has former PM and Class A War Criminal Tojo Hideki,
probably the most widely-reviled Japanese individual ever, as its main
character. The film itself features a scene in which Tojo's grandson is
forced to stand in front of his elementary school teacher and hear his
grandfather condemned as "worse than a thief." Not only did Tojo pull Japan
into a miserable, losing war, he failed to die when he shot himself in
a suicide attempt. Clearly the purpose of the movie is to use the Tojo
story to shore up the opinion that "Japan was not the only villain of the
war."
The Tokyo War Crimes Trial,
in which the Allied forces try the Class A War Criminals, dominates the
film. Before seeing the film, I wondered why the filmmakers felt it necessary
to dramatically re-enact the trial, since we already have so much documentary
footage available and since Kobayashi Masaki's feature-length documentary,
THE TOKYO WAR CRIMES TRIAL [1983.see Note A below], gives us such a detailed
account. As it turns out, the trial comes across as a far more powerful
sense of drama than we get from [Kobayashi's] carefully edited documentary
footage.
Scott Wilson, as Prosecutor
Kenan, puts in a very convincing performance, as does Tsugawa Masahiko
as Tojo. Kenan asks Tojo, "Do you think that what you did was right?" to
which the defendant replies, "Most certainly." Next Kenan demands, "And
would you do it again if you are acquitted?" The highpoint of the film
is where he thunders this line. Still, taken as a whole, the film gives
a certain sense of awkwardness. This probably comes from the maladroit
attempt to intertwine the themes of the Indian independence movement [see
Note B] and the Trials itself. Apparently the original plan was to focus
on the independence movement and it was the director, Ito Toshiya's idea
to incorporate the Trials. As it turns out, the center of the film has
shifted to the trial, and the Indian independence motif gets enveloped
in a mist. It probably would have been better boldly to sieze on the Trials
as the film's only subject. That way, it could have delved more deeply
into the issue of Prosecutor Kenan.
Throughout the trial Tojo
maintains a combative stance. When the issue of the Nanjing Massacre is
raised, he responds, "It is inconceivable that the Imperial Army could
have carried out such an act." Thus, in this way, the film presents in
a very straight manner Tojo's own viewpoint. In ordeer to get a more balanced
fix on the latter issue, viewers might do well to see NANJING 1937. The
film is two hours and forty-one minutes in length.
*********************************************************************************
Note A: Kobayashi apparently took quite
a number of years to work his documentary material into a sort of private
"thesis" film concerning ther Trials. The point he makes is that they were
an emotionalized farce in which very little in the way of "actual war crimes"
was proven. Personally, I was shocked by his bold intercutting of footage
from the My Lai massacre and of the atomic bombings to demonstrate that
America was just as "guilty" as Japan. While I agreed that the A-bombing
was a serious mistake and American actions in Vietnam utterly reprehensible,
I felt that Kobayashi was consciously attempting to obscure the issues
of the Trials and to create an apologia for wartime Japan. Just a year
before Kobayashi's film came out, psychologist/pop essayist Kishida Shu
published his famous collection of essays, Monogusa Seishin Bunseki, where
in one essay he roundly condemns the Trials in a similar manner. In a style
of foaming-at-the-mouth with righteous indignation (in many way he was
a fore-runner of Kobayashi Yoshinori's "goman-ism"), he "psychologically
analyzes" America as a nation shot through with "giman" (self-deception),
a condition which causes it to believe that its "rhetoric and idealism"
makes it in fact morally pure, while in fact, from the days of the Puritan's
Pequoit War, it has consistently engaged in loathsome, genocidal activities.
The Trials, he says, were a perfect example of this "giman." He ends his
essay with the ringing line, "Until America becomes ashamed of the Tokyo
War Crimes Trials and until America returns the land it has stolen from
the Indians, I will never trust an American." The book stayed in print
until 1991.
Although Kobayashi's America-phohobic stance
is far more muted in THE TOKYO WAR CRIMES TRIALS, the underlying logic
has close similarities.
Note B: The issue of Japan's sympathy with
and fostering of the Indian independence movement became the subject of
a major film during the Pacific War--Kinugasa Teinosuke's ADVANCE, FLAG
OF INDEPENDENCE (Susume Dokuritsu Ki, Toho, 1943--available unsubtitled
on video), a syrupy semi-"spy" drama set in 1939 Japan and featuring Hasegawa
Kazuo as an Indian independence activist refugeeing in Japan. The character
he plays expresses awe and adoration for Everything Japanese, looking to
Japan as the potential savior of his people. When he is kidnapped from
a Tokyo street by the nefarious British ambassador (Saito Tatsuo) and held
captive in the British embassy, he commits suicide. Pro-Japanese real-life
Indian independence leader, Chandra Bose, makes a brief appearance in the
Toho war documentary MALAYAN WAR RECORD (Maraya Senki, 1942) in the section
depicting the All-Asian Conference called together in Tokyo by Tojo Hideki.
Peter B. High
Date: Sat, 23 May 1998
Here, for the curious, is my Japan Times
review of "Pride," which will appear in the Tuesday, May 26 edition.
Most Japanese movies slip in and out of
the theaters while registering barely a blip on the mental radar screen
of the local foreign community. I wish I had Y100 for every glazed look
I've encountered when I mention "Mononoke Hime" (The Princess Mononoke),
the Hayao Miyazaki animation that shattered all Japanese box office records
last year -- I could buy a ticket to "Titanic," which recently surpassed
it as Japan's biggest-ever box office winner. One recent Japanese film,
however, is getting the plenty of attention from outlanders -- nearly all
of it negative. That film is "Pride -- Unmei no Toki" (Pride -- The Fatal
Moment), a biopic that focuses on the wartime career and subsequent war
crimes trial of former prime minister Hideki Tojo. When I first heard about
the production of the film, underwritten by a home developer whose chairman
is a notorious rightist, I thought it was sick joke, comparable to an aging
German industrialist with neo-Nazi sympathies financing a Broadway revival
of "Springtime for Hitler"
But no, the makers of "Pride" are in deadly
earnest and, far from being a cheap whitewash, their film is a lavish big-budget
production with elaborately realistic period sets (including the gallows
from which Toho and his six fellow war criminals swung), location scenes
shot in India with thousands of extras, and an all-star cast headed by
Masahiko Tsugawa, who pulls out all stops as Tojo. This formidably gifted
veteran, who is best known abroad for his work in the comedies of Juzo
Itami, also bears a strong physical resemblance to the late wartime leader
and has gone on the promo campaign trail to plump for the film's historical
accuracy, while excoriating his countrymen for losing their Yamato damashi
(Japanese spirit) and forgetting Bushido (the way of the samurai). Clearly
for Tsugawa, as well as for director Shunya Ito and others involved in
the production, "Pride" is not a straight soul-for-cash deal with the devil,
but a labor of conviction, even love.
What is that conviction? To put it simply,
it is that, far from being the horned arch-demon of Allied wartime propaganda,
Tojo was a staunch patriot, able leader and warm-hearted family man who
personified the samurai spirit of loyalty and self-sacrifice. Meanwhile,
the film presents the Tokyo Trial, at which an international panel of judges
heard the cases of 28 defendants charged with war crimes, as a little more
than vehicle for victor's revenge, whose death sentence for Tojo was a
foregone conclusion. It also makes the claim that Japan was fighting, not
for its own aggrandizement, but to free the subject peoples of Asia, particularly
Indians, from the yoke of their white colonial masters.
Though I sat through "Tokyo Saiban" (Tokyo
Trial), Masaki Kobayashi's exhaustive, if exhausting, four-and-a-hour 1983
documentary, I cannot claim to be an expert on either Tojo or his trial.
What I can say, after rummaging through yellowed clips and poking about
World War II tomes to refresh my memory, is that the film is not totally
off the mark. Tojo did have more than a few admirable qualities, including
a rock-solid integrity of a kind in short supply among today's bureaucrats
and politicians, and a razor-sharp mind that tore many of his prosecutors'
ill-informed arguments to shreds. Also, the film's portrayal of his trial
is, as far it goes, faithfully follows the outline of the historical record,
including the refusal of GHQ authorities to permit publication of the minority
opinion of Indian jurist Rabhabinod Pal, the only judge to find the defendants
innocent of all charges (and who is, not incidentally, the film's sole
non-Japanese hero).
"Pride" is not content, however, to correct
errors and distortions that have crystallized, over the decades, into received
opinion. Instead, it presents a one-sided view of its hero and his deeds
that may have many cinematic precedents -- the Japanese film industry has
been releasing nationalistic war films for decades -- but goes beyond most
in its unapologetic revisionism. Given that growing numbers of Japanese
are subscribing to that revisionism, thanks in part to Ministry of Education
censorship that has made proper instruction in World War II history all
but impossible, "Pride" is a film that deserves serious attention, not
casual dismissal.
One could take issue with the way the film
massages its depictions of events to fit its particular mold. More important,
however, are its glaring omissions. The film presents Tojo as the embodiment
of traditional Japanese virtue, who stoically undermines his own defense
to save his Emperor. We never see the blinkered, rigid ultranationalist
who failed to fully calculate the costs of the war or the chances of success,
to the grief of millions. It portrays chief prosecutor Joseph Keenan as
an arrogant, ignorant, politically motivated score settler whose case against
Tojo depended on fragmentary anecdotes and baseless insinuations. It conveniently
omits testimony by prosecution witnesses, including eyewitnesses to the
Rape of Nanjing, that offered irrefutable evidence of Japanese aggression
and brutality.
It gives us scenes of pure-hearted Japanese
soldiers and their Indian allies, led by Subhas Chandras Bose, advancing
gloriously against the British imperialists on the India-Burma border in
1944. It does not show us the outcome: confused retreat, despite direct
orders from Tokyo to hold ground, followed by disease, suicide, and a complete
breakdown in discipline. It also does not present the fruits of Japanese
"liberation" in Asia -- a hatred and distrust of Japan that endures among
survivors and their descendants to this day. What is really needed to counter
"Pride," however, is not outraged reviews in English-language newspapers,
but a film that presents the whole truth about Tojo and his co-defendants,
that effectively revises the revisionists. But who would finance it and
film it, especially to the tune of "Pride"'s Y1.5 billion? Hard to imagine
anyone being so foolish, isn't?. There's a market for "Pride," but not
a nation's shame.
Date: Sat, 23 May 1998
The CNN website carried an item from the
AP wire service on the film "Pride" today. I guess we can't ignore it,
even if we wanted to. (I hope AP doesn't sue me for quoting the article...)
Film depicts Tojo, Japan's
WWII leader, as a hero
May 23, 1998
TOKYO (AP) -- A Japanese
movie that stirred controversy for depicting Japan's most notorious war
criminal as a hero was released Saturday throughout the country amid protests
from neighboring Asian countries.
The film, "Pride," about
Japan's wartime leader Gen. Hideki Tojo, has provoked harsh criticism from
China and North Korea. But the movie had a quiet start in Tokyo, where
no protests were held and theaters had empty seats.
So far, the Japanese public
has largely ignored the movie. Aside from one small campaign against it
by a labor union, there have been no major demonstrations.
But in Beijing, the state-run
Xinhua News Agency again attacked the film Saturday calling it "reactionary,"
saying it "turns history upside down" and sought to beautify Japan's wartime
actions.
At Marunouchi Toei theater
in Tokyo's posh Ginza shopping district, only the first showing -- which
was preceded by greetings from the film's stars -- was nearly full. The
other three viewings had plenty of empty seats, the theater said.
The film opened at some 140
other theaters around the country.
Toei, the studio that made
"Pride," said viewer reaction has been good at special screenings before
Saturday's release. Some people were deeply moved, and others left feeling
proud of being Japanese, Toei said.
Tojo was hanged 50 years
ago after being tried as a Class-A war criminal at the Military Tribunal
for the Far East in Tokyo.
Tojo, who served as prime
minister from 1941 to 1944, gave the go-ahead for the attack on Pearl Harbor.
In one scene in the film, Tojo refuses to believe that Japanese forces
carried out the Nanjing Massacre in China. The filmmakers defend the scene
as faithful to Tojo's personality.
In announcing the film earlier
this month, Toei, said the company wanted to correct the perception imposed
by American victors that Tojo was a militarist aggressor.
"Pride" cost $11 million
to make, three times Toei's usual budget.
The film suggests Tojo was
actually a peaceful man who took Japan to war in self-defense and to liberate
Asia from Western colonialism -- a popular view among Japanese ultra right-wing
activists and politicians who defend Japan's wartime role.
Last week, China expressed
"shock" at the way Tojo was portrayed in the film, and North Korea called
it "shameless."
Fending off growing international
criticism, Foreign Ministry pokesman Sadaaki Numata said Friday: "Whatever
may be contained in this film in no way reflects the position of the government
of Japan."
Lawrence Marceau
Date: Sun, 7 Jun 98
RIGHTIST SLASHES THEATER SCREEN
Just after noon on the 6th, a 27-year old
self-proclaimed rightist slashed the screen of Yokohama's Shinema Beti
theater, which that day was beginning its run of the Hong Kong-China co-production,
_Nanking 1937_ (a 1995 film directed by Ziniu Wu). The film is a dramatic
recreation of the Nanjing Massacre. A letter had arrived from a right wing
group on the 5th calling for a cancellation of the showing and right-wing
promotional trucks had made the same call on the 5th and 6th. Perhaps as
a precaution, the Isezaki Police Station had sent an officer to the theater,
and thus the slasher was immediately arrested.
The theater was able to tape up the screen
and continue that day's showings.
Aaron Gerow
Yokohama National University
From: Ono Seiko and Aaron Gerow
Subject: People's Daily on Pride
From: "Jean W. Williams"
Subject: RE: People's Daily on Pride
From: David Hopkins
Subject: RE: People's Daily on Pride
From: Ono Seiko and Aaron Gerow
Subject: RE: People's Daily on Pride
From: David Hopkins
Subject: RE: People's Daily on Pride
From: "Peter B. High"
Subject: RE:Toei's PRIDE
Nagoya University
From: "Mark Schilling"
Subject: Re: Pride
From: "Peter B. High"
Subject: Re: Mainichi's Review of PRIDE
Nagoya University
From: "Mark Schilling"
Subject: Re: Mainichi's Review of PRIDE
From: Lawrence Marceau
Subject: Pride
From: Ono Seiko and Aaron Gerow
Subject: Rightist attack
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