The 1990s was supposed to be the era when Japanese cinema revealed the true heterogeneity
of the archipelago’s population, exposed the porousness of its borders, and thereby opened up
to the transnational flows that have challenged the long-standing myth of Japan as a homo-
geneous nation. Resident Korean (zainichi) directors such as Sai Yōichi (Choe Yang-il), Lee
Sang-il, and Matsue Tetsuaki offered accounts of Japan’s largest minority population, while
filmmakers such as Takamine Gō and Nakae Yūji explored the difference of Okinawan culture
that was often suppressed in Japan’s rush to become a unified and modern nation state. Still
other filmmakers, as varied as Miike Takashi, Yamamoto Masashi, Harada Masato, Zeze Takahisa,
Yanagimachi Mitsuo, Iwai Shunji, and Ōtomo Katsuhiro, presented a Japan crisscrossed by trans-
national flows of Chinese, Pakistanis, Iranians, Brazilians, or Iranians, where multiple languages
filled the soundtrack.
Some of these films were themselves shot outside Japan, as filmmaking saw an increasing
consciousness of the international dimensions of media production. Japanese film companies
made attempts at international co-production, such as with Hong Kong (Christ of Nanking
[Tony Au, 1995]) or South Korea (KT [Sakamoto Shunji] and Seoul [Nagasawa Masahiko], both
2002),^1 as especially the latter nation began opening up its doors to products of Japanese popu-
lar culture in 1998 after a long-time ban. Asian producers also actively sought out the Japanese
market by not only seeking Japanese partners, but also adapting Japanese content and utilizing
Japanese talent (for instance, the 1997 Hong Kong adaptation of Yoshimoto Banana’s novel
Kitchen, directed by Ho Kim and co-starring Tomita Yasuko).
Japanese productions, too, conscious of foreign markets, would bring in Hong Kong or
increasingly Korean performers into their movies (such as the Japanese production Hon Kon
daiyasōkai [Hong Kong Night Club, Watanabe Takayoshi, 1998], co-starring Anita Yuen). A “boom”
in the popularity of Hong Kong stars among Japanese fans in the mid-1990s was followed by
the “Kanryū” or “Hallyu” wave in the mid-2000s. American studios, long restricted to being
involved in the distribution of their own products in Japan, moved into other sectors of the film
business, as Warner Bros. in particular helped spearhead the construction of multiplex theaters
and eventually became a major producer of Japanese films. Entering the 2000s, Hollywood
famously both bought up and remade Japanese movies, especially horror films such as The Ring
(Ringu, Nakata Hideo, 1998) and Ju-On: The Grudge ( Juon, Shimizu Takashi, 2002) and produced
films like The Last Samurai (Edward Zwick, 2003) that were set in Japan.
rick simeone
(Rick Simeone)
#1