¹ From Choryon's cultural almanac compiled in 1949. Zainichi Chōsenjin Renmei, Zainichi Chōsen bunka nenkan (Tokyo: Chōsen Bungeisha, 1949), 60. For the summary of the almanac in Japanese, see Oh Kyu-sang, “Eiga tsūshin jigyōhen” in Dokyumento Zainichi Chōsenjin Renmei: 1945-1949 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2009), 261-262.

² The Prange Collection at University of Maryland is a unique archive contains a near complete record of the paper-based media published between 1945 and 1949. Sakaguchi Eiko, “Senryōki (1945-1949) GHQ no shuppanbutsu ken'etsu,” Intelligence: 20-seiki media kenkyū jokan 12 (March 2012): 6-13.

³ My study owes much to Kobayashi Somei's groundbreaking discovery of the hundreds of magazine and newspaper titles published by Koreans in Occupied Japan. The majority of materials Kobayashi found were in the Japanese language and were aimed at a general Japanese readership. For an overview of his study, see Kobayashi Sōmei, Zainichi Chōsenjin no media kūkan: GHQ senryōki ni okeru shinbun hakkō to sono dainamizumu (Tokyo: Fūkyōsha, 2007). For an annotated list of magazines published by Koreans, see Kobayashi Sōmei, “GHQ senryōki ni okeru zainichi Chōsenjin zasshi no shoshiteki kenkyū,” Jinbungaku kenkyū shohō 43 (March 2010): 101-111.

⁴ John Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York: W.W. Norton, 1999), 180.

⁵ The media scholar Katō Tetsurō suggests that, despite SCAP's press code, there were ample instances in which publications used the banned expression “Daitōa Sensō.” “Senryōka-Nihon no jōhō uchū to ‘genbaku’ ‘genshiryoku’,” Intelligence: 20-seiki media kenkyū jokan 12 (March 2012): 14-27.

⁶ The film included an infamous dissolve towards the end that showed an image of Hirohito in military uniform morphing into the postwar image of the emperor in his civilian clothes. But the story behind the ban was complicated. Even within the CCD (Civil Censorship Detachment), there were voices that supported the film and its critique of the wartime military-industrial complex and the imperial system. For instance, in a memo from the CCD to the CIS (Civil Intelligence Section), dated August 9, 1946, an American staffer defends the film, noting that the film did not “indulge in violent criticism, vituperation, or ridicule of the Emperor,” and cautioning that a ban would not only set a bad precedent, but also necessitate “a change in policy governing not only films, but all public media which are censored.” See Civil Censorship Detachment, “CCD to CIE Cinema: Tragedy of Japan,” in Box 8520, Folder 2, in SCAP Records, NARA.

⁷ Cited in Kyoko Hirano, Mr. Smith Goes to Tokyo (Washington: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1992), 138.

⁸ On September 20, 1945, film company executives were summoned by the IDS (Information Dissemination Section), a section that was on the same day reorganized into the CIE (Civil Information and Education Section), and were instructed to produce films that followed the principles of the Potsdam Declaration. For a full account of the values SCAP demanded the Japanese film companies promote, see Hirano, Mr. Smith Goes to Tokyo, 37-41.

⁹ With the “Memorandum Concerning Elimination of Japanese Government Control of the Motion Picture Industry,” issued on October 16, 1945, Japanese film producers and exhibitors were freed from Japanese government censorship, effectively annulling not only the 1939 Eiga-hō (Film Law), but also all preceding laws going back to the Katsudō eiga ‘firumu’ ken'etsu kisoku (Motion Picture Film Censorship Act) issued by the Ministry of Interior Affairs in 1925. With the formal annulling of the Film Law on December 26, 1945, theaters were allowed to screen Japanese and foreign films that had been previously banned. At the same time, however, SCAP imposed a new set of restrictions. Already on November 17, 1945, the CIE issued the “Memorandum Concerning Elimination of Undemocratic Motion Pictures” which listed the 236 titles of films that were to be banned for supporting militarism and feudalism. See Hirano, Mr. Smith Goes to Tokyo, 39-41; Makino Mamoru, Nihon eiga ken'etsushi (Tokyo: Pandora, 2003), 18.

¹⁰ The double censorship system continued until April 19, 1949, when the task was handed over to the Film Classification and Rating Committee (commonly known as Eirin) in a system based on the American Motion Picture Production Code. Makino, Nihon eiga ken'etsushi, 19.

¹¹ Citing Mark Gayn's article on the issue in The Chicago Sun, Iwasaki speculates that Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru had personally lobbied SCAP to stop the release of the film which he found problematic. Iwasaki Akira, Eiga ni miru sengo sesōshi (Tokyo: Shin Nihon Shuppansha, 1973), 51.

¹² Abé Mark Nornes, “The Body at the Center: The Effects of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” in Hibakusha Cinema: Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Nuclear Image in Japanese Film, ed. Mick Broderick (London: Kegan Paul International, 1996), 121.

¹³ Ibid., 131.

¹⁴ A good example of the mythological postwar narrative of Japanese defiance of US censorship is the television documentary: Ima zenbō ga akirakani: Bosshū sareta genbaku firumu (Now All Is Revealed: Confiscated Atomic Bomb Film), TV Tokyo Documentary, August 4, 1990.

¹⁵ In addition to the tacit alliance the Japanese filmmakers formed with McGovern in defying the U.S. government's suppression of the film, Nornes presents another instance that complicates the dichotomy of the Japanese and the Americans. Through a close reading of the film and the criticism it garnered for its “inhumane” depiction of the destruction, Nornes suggests a disturbing ideological identification of the Nichiei filmmakers with the developers of the A-bomb. Eager to understand the logic of the bomb, the film methodically documents the destruction, starting from sites 15 kilometers away and zooming in on the epicenter, boasting of the technological prowess of the team to scientifically document the destruction. Nornes, “The Body at the Center,” 139-142.

¹⁶ Tragedy of Japan carried a symbolic significance for Iwasaki who was conscious of Nichiei's complicity with the wartime military regime in disseminating false information about the war through the newsreel series Nippon News. The focus of the compilation film was, therefore, the exposition of the deceptions in the newsreel footage it re-edited. Iwasaki, Eiga ni miru sengo sesōshi, 49.

¹⁷ Ibid., 57-60.

¹⁸ Yomiuri Shimbun (August 11, 1946).

¹⁹ See an advertisement in Asahi Shimbun (December 22, 1945).

²⁰ The ban on This Year became another point of contention between the CIE and the CCD. Nichiei's producer Kanō Ryūichi took a bold decision to write to the Nisei official at the CCD, A. K. Mori, to protest the instruction to delete 12 scenes in This Year (also referred to as This Past One Year in the letter), reasoning that the May Day celebration of 1946, which was ordered for deletion, was indispensable for the film. The CIE official Leonard Osrow supported Kanō's argument and critiqued CCD's suppression. An internal memo reports that Osrow likened This Year to Tragedy of Japan: “I don't care about the ‘Tragedy of Japan’ […] That was Conde's film. This one is mine.” See Civil Censorship Detachment, “Letter from Nippon Eiga Sha, August 22, 1946” and “Memo for Records ‘This Year-1945-1946’ 4 reel film produced by Nippon Eiga Sha,” in Box 8520, Folder 2, in SCAP Records, NARA.

²¹ Dower, Embracing Defeat, 121.

²² Repatriation was made difficult by the scarcity of vessels, in addition to a SCAP regulation that limited the value of properties Koreans could take out of Japan to 1,000 yen for fear of destabilizing the already precarious economy in Japan. Although ameliorated in January 1946, the strict regulations and the unfavorable rumors about the chaotic situations in Korea contributed to the decision of some 600,000 Koreans to postpone their repatriation. See Changsoo Lee, “The Period of Repatriation, 1945-1949,” in Koreans in Japan: Ethnic Conflict and Accommodation, eds. Changsoo Lee and George Vos (Berkeley: University of Berkeley Press, 1981), 58-61.

²³ For instance, John Lie reads contemporary feature films in the rubric of politics of representation. “Zainichi Recognitions: Japan's Korean Residents’ Ideology and Its Discontents,” Japan Focus (November 2008), http://japanfocus.org/-John-Lie/2939 (accessed August 22, 2014). For a more detailed study of the representation of zainichi Koreans in Japanese cinema in Japanese-language scholarship, see Yang In-sil, “Sengo Nihon eiga ni okeru ‘zainichi’-zō o meguru gensetsu kūkan,” Zainichi Chōsenjin kenkyū 33 (October 2003): 77-95 and Monma Takashi, “Nihon eiga no naka no zainichi-zō,” in Tsuki wa dotchi ni deteiru o meguru nisan no hanashi, ed. Lee Bong-ou (Tokyo: Shakai Hyōronsha, 1994), 213-230.

²⁴ Zainichi Chōsenjin Renmei, Zainichi Chosen bunka nenkan, 60.

²⁵ Ibid., 80.

²⁶ Ibid.

²⁷ Oh, Dokyumento Zainichi Chōsenjin Renmei, 165.

²⁸ Ibid., 266.

²⁹ Ibid., 261-262.

³⁰ See Imamura Taihei's summary of the penetration of mobile projection units organized by news companies and film studios including Tōnichi Osaka Mainichi Shimbun, Yomiuri Shimbun, and Tōhō. Imamura Taihei, Sensō to eiga (Tokyo: Daiichi Geibunsha, 1942), 61-64.

³¹ Tanaka Jun'ichirō, Nihon eiga hattatsushi, vol. 3 (Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1976), 143-146.

³² SCAP documents record Ishimoto's official title as the assistant to Ri San-yo, Min-ei's Production Bureau Chief, but there is no mention of the exact nature of his work at Minei. Civil Censorship Detachment, “Special Report: Minshu Eiga Kabushiki Gaisha (People's Motion Picture Co. Ltd.),” in Box 8617, Folder 34, in SCAP Records, NARA.

³³ Film production in Indonesia and the Southern Pacific regions was masterminded by the Cabinet Information Bureau (Naikaku Jōhōkyoku), which reasoned that “for places in the Southern territories with undeveloped culture, the impact of visual presentation, as in motion picture, can be particularly significant.” Such a statement betrays a utilitarian view of film as an ideal vehicle for the masses and echoes the logic of Choryon. For information on Ishimoto in Indonesia, see Okada Hidenori, “Kikuchi Shū: Jawa jidai o kataru,” in Kikuchi Shū no kiroku, ed. Makino Mamoru (unpublished commemorative volume, 2002). For information on Japanese film production in Indonesia, see Kurasawa Aiko, “Propaganda Media on Java under the Japanese 1942-1945,” Indonesia 44 (1987): 59-116.

³⁴ Choryon's almanac published in 1949 lists four other Japanese names (Nakamura Tadashi, Nakamura Toshirō, Kurahara Nobuo, and Nakayama Yoshio) as those hired by Min-ei for directing, camera, and screenplays. Zainichi Chōsenjin Renmei, Zainichi Chōsen bunka nenkan, 80.

³⁵ Shimada Kō, “Kim Sun-myoung: Gambling on a Homeland Film Studio,” in Borders Within: What It Means to Live in Japan, eds. Yasui Yoshio and Tanaka Noriko (Tokyo: Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival Tokyo Office, 2005), 18; Oh, “Eiga tsūshin jigyōhen,” 266.

³⁶ Shimada, “Kim Sun-myoung,” 18.

³⁷ Ibid.

³⁸ In the first general conference held on October 15-16, 1945, Choryon members adopted the following six points as the objectives of the organization: to contribute to the founding of Independent Korea; to help maintain world peace; to provide stable livelihood for Koreans who stayed in Japan; to facilitate orderly repatriation for Koreans who wished to leave Japan; to foster good relations with the Japanese; and to unite the Koreans under shared goals. Oh, “Eiga tsūshin jigyōhen,” 14.

³⁹ Yasui Yoshio, “An Investigation Starting from a Film Can Label,” in Yasui and Tanaka, eds., Borders Within: What It Means to Live in Japan, 20.

⁴⁰ CCD's report describes Choryon a “Communist organization […] composed mainly of members of the Japanese communist Party,” and meticulously records the names of companies and individuals that hold the stakes in Min-ei. Given such scrutiny, the absence of the mention of the manipulation of Liberation News in the report presumably indicates their ignorance of the incident. Civil Censorship Detachment, “Special Report: Minshu Eiga Kabushiki Gaisha (People's Motion Picture Co. Ltd.),” in Box 8617, Folder 34, in SCAP Records, NARA.

⁴¹ David Conde, “The Korean Minority in Japan,” Far Eastern Review (February 26, 1947): 41.

⁴² The two-sided treatment originates in Washington's directory issued on November 10, 1945, which stipulated that former colonial subjects should be treated as liberated subjects except under special circumstances, which enabled SCAP to treat them as both Japanese and alien during the Occupation. See Kim Taegi, Sengo Nihon seiji to zainichi Chōsenjin mondai: SCAP no tai zainichi Chōsenjin seisaku 1945-1952-nen (Tokyo: Keisō Shobō, 1997), 9.

⁴³ “Airplanes in the sky, tanks on the ground, only the battle ship was missing,” was the famous line summarizing the heavy handed way in which SCAP broke the third and final phase of the Tōhō Strikes that lasted between 1946 and 1948. See Tanaka Nihon eiga hattatsushi, 246.

⁴⁴ Murao Kaoru, “Makkāsā no tai-Nichi eiga gyōsei,” Kinema Junpō 153 (August 1956), 91-95. While we might find the Korean student's demand in Murao's anecdote incredulous, it might not have been as ridiculous to demand free admission for the now-liberated Koreans at a time when the admission fee itself was politicized within mainstream leftist politics. For instance, the studios and the unions clashed with the government in 1947 regarding the proposed hike in the admission tax, an additional tax on each ticket that the unions criticized as the legacy of the wartime Film Law. See the prounion newsletter by Jiyū Ēigajin Shūdan (Collective of Free Filmmakers), Sukurīn Daijesuto (May 28, 1948).

⁴⁵ The image of the Korean thug in black markets became a staple in yakuza film. In New Bad Reputation (Shin Akumyō, dir. Mori Kazuo, 1962) and Battles Without Honor and Humanity (Jingi Naki Tatakai, dir. Fukasaku Kinji, 1973), Koreans are unruly foreigners who terrorize Japanese citizens while the Japanese yakuza assume the role of the crusaders who restore order by eliminating the foreigners. Yang In-sil, “The Representation of ‘Zainichi’ in Yakuza Films,” Ritsumeikan sangyō shakai ronshū 38. 2 (September 2002): 113-131; Kokubo Satoshi, “Nihon eiga ni kakareta Chōsen,” Kiroku 161 (1992): 44-48.

⁴⁶ The screening was advertised on mainstream Japanese media. According to the advertisement on Yomiuri Shimbun (August 9, 1946), the site of the screening was the public hall Hibiya Kōkaidō, a symbolic location where Choryon was founded. On February 7, 1947, Chōsen Kokusai Bunka Renmei had already used the venue for a concert featuring Japanese singers performing arias from classical opera including Madame Butterfly, Carmen, and Il Pagliacci. See the advertisements in Yomiuri Shimbun (January 28, 1947 and April 27, 1947).

⁴⁷ Shōchiku premiered Mayerling on November 19, 1946. See the advertisement featured on Asahi Shimbun (November 20, 1946).

⁴⁸ While the film tacitly supported the wartime ideology of naisen ittai, the CCD presumably found the film acceptable for public screening. For the discussion of Angles on the Street as a work shaped by the colonial-era Korean Film Law, see Brian Yecies and Ae-Gyung Shim, Korea's Occupied Cinemas, 1893-1948 (London: Routledge, 2011), 120.

⁴⁹ Zainichi Chōsenjin Renmei, Zainichi Chōsen bunka nenkan, 81.

⁵⁰ Oh, “Eiga tsūshin jigyōhen,” 266.

⁵¹ “Gaikoku eiga no 9-wari wa fuhō shoji,” Asahi Shimbun (September 21, 1946).

⁵² The bio-pic Madame Curie (dir. Mervin LeRoy, 1943), which opened in February 1946, was the first American film imported into Japan after the war. Imports from other countries reopened in December 1946. Tanaka, Nihon eiga hattatsushi, 274-289.

⁵³ The story of Ajia Bunka Kyōkai (alternatively referred to as Ajia Bungeikai, and translated as “Asia Literary Association” by the SCAP censors) is well documented thanks to the numerous letters Kim sent to the CIE and USAMGIK. “Korean Film Data,” Box 5307, Folder 2, in SCAP Records, NARA.

⁵⁴ See Kim's letter to the Central Foreign Affairs Office of USAMGIK: “Application for the Authorization to Import a Korean Motion Picture Film to Japan” (July 20, 1948), in Ibid.

⁵⁵ Ibid.

⁵⁶ The CIE was largely supportive of Kim's plan to use the film for the education of Korean pupils and youths to encourage the study of Korean and “the literary arts of the native country,” but it could not allow an admission charge without infringing on the jurisdiction of the Central Motion Picture Exchange that administered imports of foreign films. Tanaka, Nihon eiga hattatsushi, 274.

⁵⁷ Noguchi Kakuchū, Henreki no Chōsho (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 1954), 245. The novel Henreki no Chōsho was a turning point in Jang's career, published soon after he changed his pen name from the Korean Jang Hyak-ju to the Japanese Noguchi Kakuchū, adopting the last name of his Japanese wife and the Japanese reading of his first name. In this article, I will use Jang Hyak-ju for the sake of consistency.

⁵⁸ Translation mine. Ibid, 250.

⁵⁹ The Korean settlement in Koma is said to originate in the arrival of the exiles of the Goguryou Kingdom (spanning the northern region of North Korea and Northeast China) who migrated to Japan following their defeat by the rival kingdom Silla in the late 7th century. After WWII, Jang moved to Hidaka, a town adjacent to Koma. For Jang's biography, see Yutaka Shirakawa, “Jang Hyak-ju Kenkyu” Shokuminchiki Chōsen no sakka to Nihon (Okayama: Daigaku Kyōiku Shuppan, 1995), 112-222.

⁶⁰ My translation of the text used in Kokusai Eiga's advertisement. Kokusai (August 1946), 97.

⁶¹ Zainichi Chōsenjin Renmei, Zainichi Chōsen bunka nenkan, 25.

⁶² For a plot summary of Back to the Woods, see Jolo, “Back to the Woods,” Variety 51 (August 1918), 37-38.

⁶³ In an introductory essay to a volume within a new anthology of Japanese film studies, Yoshimi Shun'ya chooses the Japanese word “kōgyō” (“promotion”) to denote the complex intersubjective processes through which film is produced, disseminated, and consumed. Rather than isolating each of the processes into a discrete object of analysis—the directors, the studios, and the spectators—Yoshimi proposes to look at a network of individuals and groups that emerge in the process of realizing film projects, for instance, labor unions that raise funding for independent film production and civil groups that organize out-of-theater screenings. “Miruhito, tsukuruhito, kakerushito,” in Nihon eiga wa ikite iru, vol. 3, eds. Kurosawa Kiyoshi et al. (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2010), 1-3.

⁶⁴ The almanac stresses the productivity of Korean film companies in Japan by comparing it to the situation in mainland Korea. The almanac estimates the number of films produced in the forty years of Korean cinema at 150. Zainichi Chōsenjin Renmei, Zainichi Chōsen bunka nenkan, 60.