If you thought Godzilla and samurai flicks are all there is to Japanese film, think again. The history of cinema in Japan extends over a century, with the first Western-made moving images being shown to rapt audiences in 1896. Within a couple of years, the Japanese had imported equipment and established their own movie industry, which flourished with all things Western in the early decades of the century. Recovering quickly after World War II, Japanese film burst onto the international scene with the innovative Rasho mon, directed by Kurosawa Akira, who along with Ozu Yasujiro, director of the highly respected Tokyo Monogatari (Tokyo Story), is the country's best-known cinema auteur.
Apart from the scandal surrounding rshima Nagisa's explicit
Ai-no-Corrida
, the movie scene generally languished during the 1970s, while in the 1980s, Japanese corporations were more intent on ploughing bubble-era profits and investment into Hollywood production companies rather than home-grown product. The 1990s saw a minor resurgence with the international popularity of the films of Itami Juzo, Takeshi Kitano and runaway success of Suo Masayuki's
Shall We Dance
?, which has become the sixth highest-earning foreign-language film ever at the American box office.
Pre-World War II
Japan got its first taste of cinema at Kobe's
Shinko Club
in 1896, and by the end of the following year, the crown prince had put in an appearance at Tokyo's Kabuki-za theatre to be entertained by the latest Western wonder. From the very...
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The 1950s and 1960s
Japanese cinema undoubtedly suffered in the authoritarian years surrounding World War II. In 1945 only 26 films were made and the future didn't look any brighter when the Allied Occupation Forces took over, drew up a list of thirteen banned subjects for...
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The 1970s and 1980s
The most successful movie development of the next two decades was the
Tora-san
series, which began with
Otoko wa Tsurai Yo
(
It's Tough Being a Man
) at the tail end of the 1960s. Tora-san, or Kuruma Torajiro, a loveable...
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The 1990s
Itami's success was consolidated by a string of hits in the 1990s, but his satirical approach went too far for some with 1992's
Minbo-no-Onna
(
The Gentle Art of Japanese Extortion
), which sent up the yakuza. Soon after its release,...
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The wild world of Japanese animation
Anime
, which commands an enthusiastic worldwide audience, is a staple of the Japanese film industry, where cutting-edge technology is increasingly being used to bring to life tales of such sophistication and imagination that they leave the...
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Films to look out for
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