Abstract
In this chapter, I discuss the 1931 film Peace After Storm (Yuguo Tianqing), the first Chinese “sound-on-film” talkie as well as the film that used the first Japanese sound-on-film talkie system. I examine Peace After Storm as trans-Asian cinema, not only as a concept but also as an actual product in history. This film existed at the crossroads of two national cinemas. In order to understand the histories of those national cinemas in their unique cultural specificities I closely examine the production history of the film as well as many still images that I have acquired from the cinematographer Henry Kotani. I demonstrate that a genuine trans-Asian cinema came to exist at a certain historical moment before the war between China and Japan.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Bibliography
Baxter, Peter. 1975. On the History and Ideology of Film Lighting. Screen 16 (3): 83–106.
Cazdyn, Eric. 2002. The Flash of Capital: Film and Geopolitics in Japan. Durham: Duke University Press.
Clark, John. 2000. Indices of Modernity: Changes in Popular Reprographic Representation. In Being Modern in Japan: Culture and Society from the 1910s to the 1930s, ed. Elise K. Tipton and John Clark, 25–49. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
Dym, Jeffery. n.d. A Brief History of Benshi (Silent Film Narrators). http://aboutjapan.japansociety.org/content.cfm/a_brief_history_of_benshi. Accessed 21 Mar 2017.
Enic-cinE. 2013a. Conversion to Talkies. http://vermillionandonenights.blogspot.com/2013/06/conversion-to-talkies.html. Accessed 21 Mar 2017.
Enic-cinE. 2013b. Conversion to Talkies: Price of Technology. http://vermillionandonenights.blogspot.com/2013/06/conversion-to-talkies-price-of.html. Accessed 21 Mar 2017.
FKR. 1937. Tōhō Shōchiku nidai burokku no kaibō [Anatomy of Toho Shochiku Two Major Blocks]. Nihon Eiga 2 (8): 90.
Fujiki, Hideaki. 2006. Benshi as Stars: The Irony of Popularity and Respectability of Voice Performers in Japanese Cinema. Cinema Journal 45 (2): 68–84.
Gerow, Aaron. 2010. Visions of Japanese Modernity: Articulations of Cinema, Nation, and Spectatorship, 1895–1925. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Grodal, Torben. 2005. Film Lighting and Mood. In Moving Image Theory: Ecological Considerations, ed. Joseph D. Anderson and Barbara Fisher Anderson, 152–163. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
Hazumi, Tsuneo. 1935. Gendai eiga ron [Theory on Contemporary Cinema]. Tokyo: Seitō shorin.
Hesse, George W. 1932. Shadows. American Cinematographer 13 (2): 37, 50.
Hirai, Teruaki. 1969. Sokō Nihon eiga satsuei shi 5 [Draft History of Japanese Cinematography 5]. Eiga Satsuei 35: 47–51.
Hirai, Teruaki. 1972a. Sokō Nihon eiga satsuei shi 18. Eiga Satsuei 48: 40–44.
Hirai, Teruaki. 1972b. Sokō Nihon eiga satsue shi 19. Eiga Satsuei 49: 37–41.
Hirai, Teruaki. 1972c. Paramaunto nyūsu no koro [The Period of Paramount News]. Eiga Terebi Gijutsu 238: 25–26.
Iwasaki, Akira. 1930. Eiga geijutsu shi (History of Film Art). Tokyo: Geibun shoin.
Jacobs, Lea. 1993. Belasco, DeMille, and the Development of Lasky Lighting. Film History 5 (4): 405–418.
Kerlan, Anne. 2015. A Chinese Production with Hollywood Taste: Love and Duty (Lian’ai yu Yiwu), by Bu Wancang, 1931, 1–30. https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01164763.
Kido, Shirō. 1930. Eiga seisaku gōrika ron [How to Rationalize Film Production]. Kokusai Eiga Shinbun 36: 22–23.
Kido, Shirō. 1956. Nihon eiga den: Eiga seisakusha no kiroku [History of Japanese Cinema: Record of a Film Producer]. Tokyo: Bungei shunjū shin sha.
Kirihara, Donald. 1992. Patters of Time: Mizoguchi and the 1930s. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
Kokusai Eiga Shinbun. 1927. Honpō nanadai satsueijo jitsuryoku chōsa [Report on the Conditions of Seven Major Studios in Japan]. 5: 1.
Kotani, Henrī. 1922. Eiga ga dekiagaru made (1) [Until a Film is Complete (1)]. Kinema Junpo (June 11): 5.
Masumoto, Yoshitoshi. 1988. Shochiku eiga no eiko to hōkai: Ofuna no jidai [Shochiku Cinema’s Glory and Collapse: The Ofuna Era]. Tokyo: Heibon sha.
Mimura, Akira. 1931. Cho kanko sei pankuro no shutsugen [Introduction of Supersensitive Panchromatic Films]. Kinema Junpō (June 1): 64.
Miyajima, Yoshio. 2002. Tennō to yobareta otoko: Satsuei kantoku Miyajima Yoshio no Showa kaiso roku [The Man Who Was Called the Emperor: Director of Photography Miyajima Yoshio’s Memoir of Showa]. Tokyo: Aiiku sha.
Miyao, Daisuke. 2013. The Aesthetics of Shadow: Lighting and Japanese Cinema. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Okada, Susumu. 1957. Nihon eiga no rekishi [History of Japanese Cinema]. Tokyo: Sanichi shobō.
Sakamoto, Tadashi, ed. 1952. Nikkatsu yonjū nen shi [Forty-Year History of Nikkatsu]. Tokyo: Nikkatsu.
Shibata, Masaru, Sasaki Hidetaka, and Kawaguchi Kazuo. 1976. Mukashi no satsueijo ato o tazunete (20) [Visiting Locations of Old Studios (20)]. Eiga Terebi Gijutsu 289: 59–62.
Shillony, Ben-Ami. 1990. Friend or Foe: The Ambivalent Images of the U.S. and China in Wartime Japan. In The Ambivalence of Nationalism: Modern Japan Between East and West, ed. James W. White, Michio Umegaki, and Thomas R.H. Havens, 187–211. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
Taguchi, Ōson. 1927. Shochiku Kinema sōritsu hiwa (5) [Secret Stories Behind the Establishment of Shochiku Kinema (5)]. Eiga Jidai 2 (2): 95–97.
Tanaka, Junichirō. 1976. Nihon eiga hattatsu shi II: Musei kara tōki e [The History of Development of Japanese Cinema II: From Silent to Talkie]. Tokyo: Chuō kōron sha.
The Museum of Kyoto. 1973. Kido Shirō kikigaki [Interview with Kido Shiro].
Thompson, Kristin. 2005. Herr Lubitsch Goes to Hollywood: German and American Film After World War I. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Yamaguchi, Takeshi (ed.). 1995. Mato o kakenuketa otoko: Watashi no kyameraman jinsei [The Man Who Ran through the Evil City: My Life as a Cinematographer]. Tokyo: Sanichi shobō.
Yau, Shuk-ting, Kinnia. 2010. Japanese and Hong Kong Film Industries: Understanding the Origins of East Asian Film Networks. London: Routledge.
Yecies, Brian M. 2003. Film Policy and the Coming of Sound to Cinema in Colonial Korea. In Aesthetics and Historical Imagination of Korean Cinema. Proceedings of the 2003 International Symposium on Korean Cinema, 38–48, Yonsei Institute of Media Art, Seoul, Korea.
Yoshimoto, Mitsuhiro. 2006. National/International/Transnational: The Concept of Trans-Asian Cinema and the Cultural Politics of Film Criticism. In Theorising National Cinema, ed. Valentina Vitali and Paul Willemen, 254–261. London: BFI.
Zhang, Yingjin. 2004. Chinese National Cinema. New York: Routledge.
Filmography
Bridge of Return (Modoribashi). Directed by Makino Masahiro. 1929.
Elegy (Wakareno hikyoku). Directed by Nezu Arata. 1931.
Hometown (Furusato). Directed by Mizoguchi Kenji. 1930.
Lullaby (Komoriuta). Directed by Suzuki Shigeyoshi. 1930.
Nakayama-shichiri. Directed by Ochiai Namio. 1930.
Namiko. Directed by Tanaka Eizō. 1932.
Peace After Storm (Yuguo Tianqing). Directed by Xia Chifeng. 1931.
The Cheat. Directed by Cecil B. DeMille. 1915.
The Neighborhood’s Wife and Mine (Madamu to nyōbo). Directed by Gosho Heinosuke. 1931.
The Silent Flower (Mono iwanu hana). Directed by Tsutami Takeo. 1931.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Mr. Kotani Eiichi for his tremendous generosity in offering valuable stories about his father, “Henry” Kotani Sōichi, as well as a number of beautiful still photos of Peace After Storm.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Miyao, D. (2018). Peace Before Storm: The Concept of Trans-Asian Cinema and Peace After Storm (Yuguo Tianqing, 1931). In: Magnan-Park, A., Marchetti, G., Tan, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Asian Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95822-1_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95822-1_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-95821-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-95822-1
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)