EAST 350 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Yoshiko Yamaguchi, Theatricality
15 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Lecture 4
January 30, 2018
8:21 AM
“China” under Erasure: Film During Occupation
1940 (Japanese Occupation)
During this time China was split up into 'mini China's' - Chongqing, Nanjing, Hong Kong, Shanghai and
Beijing
Shanghai has been a place where modernity is experienced in the context of colonialism. It becomes
modern because it's where film was made and it was ground zero on how modernity was negotiated in a
colonial context. At this time, the politics of film making was politics in itself.
1937 - the real takeover of Shanghai; Japan controlled the city from the government in Nanjing.
Within this time Hong Kong was under British rule until 1941 when Japan took over. It was a safe and
neutral place where you could move back and forth and make films on your own. They had a whole
other film production not in Mandarin but in Cantonese, the production of Cantonese film was always
being suppressed during the 1930's.
Manchuria becomes a place highly prioritized by Japan as a model of a multi-ethnic empire that they
envisioned. It gets its own film industry, they made a lot of propaganda films meant to sum up the vision
of multi-ethnic Asian cooperation. The films ended up being only for Japanese audiences.
Yoshiko Yamaguchi was a Japanese woman from Manchuria who embodied the vision, she spoke
Japanese, Chinese and Russian. She passed off as a Chinese woman and in her roles often portrayed a
Chinese woman who learns to be Japanese.
Queen of Sports 1930
This is an example of a KMT propaganda film making and how the new life movement of moving the
Chinese body into a National body gets exemplified through film.
Li Li Li exemplified the New Life Movements idea of what a woman should be.
She is portrayed as a sporty country girl who embodies her physicality and doesn't care what others
think. The scenes where she is seen climbing up a high structure and her skirt flies up a bit wasn't
presented in a way that should suggest sexualization but rather her freedom and how she lives carefree.
Romance Western Chamber
One of the first made narrative films in the 1920's
In the film there is a co-existence of a certain kind of realism with a certain kind of film making with
regards to the stage.
The idea of citing theatre within film persist throughout the 30's.
Shadow magic placed theatre as tradition and film as modernity but in movies like this it is evident that
they both mix with eachother - performance of fight scenes that are similar to dance moves done in
Peking opera
Mulan Joins the Army
Cheng Yun Shang (Mulan) was promoted through this film as if she was already a big star, she was
heavily advertised and presented as an actress just like Li Li Li.
Mulan and the children sing a song in the movies that's an allegory to the KMT flag.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
During this time china was split up into "mini china"s" - chongqing, nanjing, hong kong, shanghai and. Shanghai has been a place where modernity is experienced in the context of colonialism. It becomes modern because it"s where film was made and it was ground zero on how modernity was negotiated in a colonial context. At this time, the politics of film making was politics in itself. 1937 - the real takeover of shanghai; japan controlled the city from the government in nanjing. Within this time hong kong was under british rule until 1941 when japan took over. It was a safe and neutral place where you could move back and forth and make films on your own. They had a whole other film production not in mandarin but in cantonese, the production of cantonese film was always being suppressed during the 1930"s. Manchuria becomes a place highly prioritized by japan as a model of a multi-ethnic empire that they envisioned.
