HOLLYWOOD FILMS / JAPANESE FILMS

A Little Leaflet from 90 Years Ago

A few days ago, I received the package from the bookstore specialized in vintage movie magazines. I won several issues of Kinema Junpo from 1920’s and ’30s from the online auction. Kinema Junpo is one of the oldest periodical publication on movies, dating back to 1919, and still in business. One of the issues in the package was dated March 11, 1924. It’s only 28 pages, including covers, but to me, it contains a wealth of information about the movie experience almost 90 years ago. Between its pages, I found a small sheet of paper. It is printed on both …

 
DOCUMENTARY FILMS / JAPANESE FILMS

Tokyo Olympic

Well, it’s final. 2020 Olympic will be held in Tokyo. Now, it’s buzzing everywhere; from internet to TV to coffee shops: who will direct the opening ceremony? It will be very hard to top London, they say. Hayao Miyazaki? Well, he announced his retirement from animation, but not from anything else. How about Anno? Well, Katsuhiro Otomo must be the man, since his AKIRA predicted 2020 Tokyo Olympic, in dystopian universe.

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JAPANESE FILMS

Foreign Films during the War Years

Japan had been one of the largest market for European and Hollywood films in the Eastern hemisphere until its totalitarian regime attacked the Pearl Harbor on December 8, 1941. Though the government was hostile toward the Allies, Japanese film exhibitors were still importing and marketing Hollywood films even in 1941. Here are the pages from the magazine called “Nihon Eiga (Japanese Film)”, July 1941. Two Hollywood films were featured in the special section: THE RAINS CAME (1939) and THE UNDER-PUP (1939). THE RAINS CAME was the 20th Century Fox production directed by the seasoned professional, Clearance Brown, and featured Myrna …