Divine Work: Japanese Colonial Cinema and its Legacy

2017 | Film & TV

"The Greater East Asian Film Sphere" (GEAFS) was a term that came into existence around 1941. Linked into the Japanese Imperialist idea of "the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere," the GEAFS was part of a pan-Asianist moment that was at the heart of the Japanese theorization (and justification) of their Imperial narrative. Central to Kate Taylor-Jones' Divine Work: Japanese Colonial Cinema and its Legacy are the key points of defining the GEAFS and analyzing how the GEAFS implemented and theorized its ideas by those in power from the late 1930s to the end of the Pacific War (1945).

With discussions of films prior to the Pacific war, (Manchurian Girl (1933) and Karayuki-san (1937), Fisherman's Fire (1939)) to coverage of films made through post-war contexts (City of Sadness (1989) and Dou-san (1994)), Taylor-Jones invites exploration to not only explore the colonial period but also discuss how cinema in the region needs to be understood not only in terms of past colonial relationships, but also in relation to how the post-colonial has engaged with shifting political alliances, the opportunities for technological advancement and knowledge, the promise of larger consumer markets, and specific historical conditions of each decade.

Kate E. Taylor-Jones (Author)