This article is published with permission from Memory Islands Isles
On January 18, 1943, people in Tokyo, Japan, suddenly noticed that a very strange movie poster appeared in front of the movie theater. The characters in the poster with pigtails are actually a movie that reflects the history of the Qing Dynasty, and the four huge Chinese characters of the "Opium War" in the center of the poster are even more blinding to the eyes of the Japanese.
Because since the Sino-Japanese War, in the movies released in Japan, Chinese are all negative characters without exception, and in this movie, not only does not a single Japanese character appear, but the male protagonist Lin Zexu is a positive image of the Qing Dynasty bureaucrats who were pedantic and cowardly in previous Japanese movies, and has become a positive image of a brave and resourceful "Tall And Complete". The film was not only released in Japan, but also produced Chinese, English, and Burmese subtitles in China, the Philippines, and Burma, which were under Japanese control at the time.
A historical drama on a grand scale
Released in 1943, "The Opium War" is the work of the famous Toho Ying painting, and its basic plot is a remake of the American film "Orphans in the Storm", the story opens with the British East India Company flying the skeleton flag warship, divided into two story lines, the first story line tells the British East India Company's YiLu and admiral Yi Lu colluded with the traitor merchant Ding Xubo to open a tobacco shop in Guangzhou, selling opium, resulting in the people of Guangzhou living in a deep and hot life.
The second storyline tells the story of a pair of twin orphan sisters named Ailan and Lilan who came to Guangzhou, the younger sister Lilan is blind, and the sister Lilan came to Guangzhou to seek medical treatment in order to take her sister to see a doctor. However, on the way to seek medical treatment, he was sold by human traffickers to Ding Xubo's home and became a singer who sold singers. At this time, Lin Zexu, the minister of Qincha, and Xu Shenbo, director of the Guangdong Opium Surveillance Bureau, came to Guangzhou, dealt with the opium dealers with tough measures, and arrested Ding Xubo, a major opium dealer. However, since most of the opium was in the Thirteen Lines of Guangzhou under British control, Xu Shenbo only confiscated less than three thousand boxes of opium.
Ding Xubo, a traitor who colluded with the British
So Lin Zexu sent Cheng Nantian to raid the thirteen lines of Guangdong and confiscated 100,000 boxes of opium, and the British navy, which saw that the opium had been confiscated, began to intimidate and shoot at the city of Guangzhou, and in a chaotic city of Guangzhou, the Ailan sisters escaped from Ding Xubo's home and lived on the streets.
After negotiating with Yilu, Lin Zexu pretended to agree to return the seized British opium, and invited Yilu and Yilu to come to the Guangdong Governor's Palace for a dinner party. At the dinner, Yi Lu and Yi Lu thought that Lin Zexu had submitted to the British. At the order of Lin Zexu, he ordered his officers and men to destroy all the 100,000 boxes of opium that had been confiscated before, and witnessing the destruction of opium, the righteous law was furious and corrupt, and immediately threatened Lin Zexu with an all-out war.
The Ailan sisters were also arrested as Ding Xubo's accomplices in selling opium. At the end of the film, the sisters Ailan and Lilan are acquitted and released, Ding Xubo, a traitorous rich man who sells opium, is beheaded, and Lin Zexu leads the people of Guangdong to the front line of the anti-British resistance.
Lin Zexu, who calls on the people to resist in the film
In order to shoot this film, Toho Ying drew a large blood capital, first of all, the screenwriter and script was the famous scripter Xiaoguo Hero at that time, and the well-known director Kurosawa Akira, who rose to fame after the war, also participated in the filming of the film. The actor was also the most first-class actor in Japan at that time, playing the heroine Ailan as Hara Setsuko, who was "the best Japanese film actress of the twentieth century", and the actor Lin Zexu was the famous Japanese stage actor Ichikawa Sarinosuke.
In order to restore the city of Guangzhou at that time, Toho Pictures also spent a huge amount of money to build a huge model of the ancient city on the numazu coast, at that time, because Japan and Britain and the United States went to war, Japan could not find British and American people, so the two major villains in this drama, Yoshiru and Yilu brothers, were played by The Japanese.
All scenes in the film are physically constructed
Basically restored the nineteenth century Guangzhou City
From the set to the screenwriter, and from the props to the actors, this movie can be called the big hand in the Japanese film industry at that time. At this time, the all-out War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression was now in its sixth year, so why did Japan, which invaded China, make a film Chinese resist the British invaders? Moreover, this film was not only released in Japan, but also in areas controlled by the Wang puppet government, and the Japanese people found out in their conscience?
In the chaotic world, Elan, Lilan sister flowers
A propaganda drama under a wartime system
Speaking of the origin of this movie, we must start from Japan's "Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere", in 1941, Japan provoked the Pacific War, and the banner of the Japanese army was to punish the "Anglo-American ghost animals" for the people in East Asia who were oppressed by European and American colonizers. Then, in early 1942, Japan won consecutive battles in the Pacific Theater, controlling the Philippines, Burma, Vietnam and other places along the way.
Therefore, in order to better control the occupied territories, the Japanese government proposed a "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" on the cultural battlefield. In 1942, Hideki Tojo's cabinet established the "Greater East Asia Province" to act as a backing for the military and unify the political and economic control of the region under its control. This Greater East Asia Province had just been established to shoot the "Great East Asian Pictures" of the East Asian countries rebelling against Britain and the United States, and this kind of film directly ordered by the Japanese government was also called "National Policy Pictures", and these films were an important part of the colonial propaganda of Japanese militarism.
The first to be released was "The Day of the Collapse of Britain", which tells the story of the Japanese army's seizure of Hong Kong. This was followed by films from various countries that were captured by the Japanese army. "The Banner of Independence" set against the backdrop of indians rebelling against the British colonialists and "The Tiger of Malay", which is set against the backdrop of the Malay People's Uprising, are invariably sinister and cunning villains, and the Japanese characters who appear in these films have become the awe-inspiring saviors of East Asia.
The two main villains in the film, the British Law of Righteousness and the Law of Yi,
Japanese actors can actually play this British character very well
Hideki Tojo's plan was that every Japanese puppet regime should have a film against the British and American colonizers, while Lin Xuhumen sold cigarettes and the Opium War was the beginning of China's semi-colonization, and it was again against the British colonizers, which had nothing to do with Japan.
The Japanese government hopes that through this "Opium War", the Chinese and Japanese people will realize that Britain is the consistent enemy of the East Asian people, and that Japan's invasion of China is only to help Chinese drive out the British and American colonists. After its release, the film was well received in Japan, but in China, the response was mediocre.
The puppet manchukuo and Japan jointly filmed the film "Genghis Khan", telling the story of Genghis Khan's expedition to Europe after rising from the steppe, and finally stepping on Europe, compared to the plot and props basically in line with the historical facts of the "Opium War", the plot of Genghis Khan is a bit exaggerated, the biggest slot is a picture of Genghis Khan and the Mongol army dressed as the Eight Flags army of Manchuria, followed by Genghis Khan did not expedition to Europe before his death. After the film was released in Japan, the word of mouth was not as good as "Opium War".
Now Chinese do not understand why the Japanese would make a film that does not have a Japanese character at all, especially this film is still about China's anti-colonial struggle, and what is even more bizarre is that Japanese audiences actually look at this film that has nothing to do with Japan, and the Japanese film magazine "Yinghua Shunbao" has also published a film review for the film.
In fact, this also reflects that Japan was forced to open the door of the country because of the "Black Ship Incident", so the Japanese at that time had a certain degree of resonance with the history of Chinese being opened by the British, and this "Opium War" became a clear stream in the Japanese wartime film industry where the "anti-American god drama" was flooded, and Japanese audiences who were tired of seeing the Japanese army beating the world would naturally choose to buy tickets.
However, under the influence of Japan's wartime system, Japan organized garrisons in various places to force the public to watch the film, and the Southeast Asian people who could not understand the drama at all were confused, and caused widespread resistance in the Philippines and other places.
The final game of "national policy and painting"
With the unconditional surrender of Japan in 1945, the "National Policy Picture" as a wartime propaganda of Japanese militarism also entered the final game, although it is not known how many Chinese audiences under the control of the Wang puppet government at that time watched this "Opium War" filmed by Japan and fully in Japanese dialogue, but one thing is certain, that is, this film has not been forgotten by the Japanese people to this day.
The heroine played by Hara Setsuko once became a representative of Chinese women in the eyes of Japan, and for a long time after the war, other "national policy films" were not allowed to be released by the US occupation authorities because of their obvious symbols of militarism, but this "Opium War" escaped the disaster because it had no militaristic plot, becoming one of the few movies that could be seen during the occupation of Japan by the US military.
Although "Opium War" is a Japanese film "national policy painting" with the purpose of promoting Japanese militarism, it still has certain artistic achievements, reflecting the ups and downs of a pair of sisters in a chaotic world. It is particularly worth affirming that the plot of the film is basically based on historical facts, and it does not forcibly set up a Japanese character who helps Lin Zexu destroy opium and stigmatizes the British colonists.