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The Manchukuo Film Association, orMan’ei, was established in 1937.4 It was co- founded and financed by both the Manchukuo polity and Mantetsu.5 _{It is hard to find any}

records of film production in Manchuria before the establishment ofMan’ei. However, it is known that the first film screening was initiated in Dalian and Harbin in 1902.6 In the 1920s, following the boom of western cinema, many movie theaters were built in Manchuria. Until Manchukuo was established in 1932, there were only about thirty

4 _{Man’ei 満映 is an abbreviation of Manchukuo Film Association or Manshū Eiga Kyōkai 満州} 映画協会 in Japanese.

5 _{The South Manchuria Railway Company, or Mantetsu 満鉄, was founded and operated by the}

Japanese empire since 1906.

6 _{Quang Gu, and Chang Hu, Man Ying--Guo Ce Dian Ying Mian Mian Guan 满映国策电影面面} 观 (Beijing: Zhonghua shu ju, 1990), 2.

theaters in Manchuria. However, by 1935, the numbers of theaters had increased to sixty- nine, including forty-two theaters operated by Japanese owners.7

As the film industry rapidly grew in Manchuria, the demand for local film production companies became extremely urgent. The initial idea of establishing Man’ei can be traced back to the Manchurian Film National Policy Research Association, which was established and supported by the Kwantung Army 関東軍and Manchukuo Police Department in 1933. 8 The initial purposes of founding this association were to support the development and exportation of Japanese films and to prevent western films from monopolizing the entertainment market in Manchuria. Due to the influence of the

association, the initial plan of establishing Man’ei was proposed in 1936 and formally put into practice in 1937. Although it was not the first attempt at making films in Manchuria, Man’ei was indeed the most organized film distribution and production company in northeast China at that time.

As soon as Man’ei was founded, the Manchukuo government immediately published legislation to control its film production in Manchuria. On the surface, the legislation solidified the system of film production in Manchuria. However, the whole Manchurian film industry, as a matter of fact, was under severe surveillance by the Manchukuo government due to the legislation, not to mention that it also served as a tool

7 _{Ibid, 3-4。}

8 _{Kwantung Army関東軍 was an army group of the Imperial Japanese Army which was largely}

for the Japanese to market its militarism in Manchuria and northeast China.9 Since Manchukuo was a puppet polity of the Japanese empire, Man’ei was largely controlled and developed to serve the political and military needs of the Japanese empire. For instance, taking Ri’s early films as an example, Peter B. High has pointed out that “All of Ri’s early Man’ei films reflected the company policy of turning out pure entertainment features in the hopes of luring Manchurian (and possibly Chinese) audiences away from the strongly anti-Japanese features being made by the Chinese in Shanghai.”10

Unsurprisingly, Man’ei was following the national policy when making films.

Geographically speaking, according to a contemporary Japanese director, Kondō Iyochi 近藤伊与吉 (1894-1944), the reasons to set up Man’ei were because Manchukuo was “under the threat of the Communist Soviet Union’s invasion in the north, theanti- Manchuria and anti-Japanese scheme of Shanghai film production company in the south…and the overbearing commercialism of U.S. films which depicted only

pornography and hedonism in the west.”11 As this quote indicates, even the ideology of western liberalism was a dangerous thought in Manchukuo. Therefore, it is not difficult to know that one of the functions of Man’ei was to control the thoughts of the public in its initial state.

9 _{Gu, Quan, and Chang Hu, Man Ying--Guo Ce Dian Ying Mian Mian Guan, 22-23.}

10 _{Peter B. High, The Imperial Screen: Japanese Film Culture in the Fifteen Years’ War, 1931-} 1945 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003), 273.

11 _{Kondō Iyokichi, “Manshu Eiga Oitachi Ki,” Geibun: Manshu Bunka Sogo Zashi 1, no. 9}

During the first few years, Man’ei was highly dependent on support from Japan. In 1939, after a former officer of the Kwantung ArmyAmakasu Masahiko 甘粕正彦 (1891-1945) took charge of Man’ei, by cooperating with Japanese film production companies such as Shōchiku 松竹12 and Tōhō 東宝,13 Man’ei also developed its own ability to make and distribute films. Man’ei not only distributed its films to Manchuria, but also to the Japanese metropole—Korea, Italy, Germany, and Taiwan. As Gu Quan has indicated in Man Ying--Guo Ce Dian Ying Mian Mian Guan 满映—国策电影面面观

(Man’ei—Every Facet of National Political Films), the relationship between Man’ei and Japan was very close and began from day one. Gu writes, “After Man’ei was established, the company immediately signed an agreement with many large film production

companies in Japan in order to mutually distribute films between each other. Moreover, Man’ei also strived to establish a film exchange program and kept friendly relationships with Germany, Italy, and Korea.”14 In November 1937, Man’ei imported and distributed Gyu-hwan Lee’s film Nageune (The Wanderer, 1937) in Manchuria. Brian Yecies and Ae-Gyung Shim have explained that,

By 1937, the artistic merits of Korean films such as…Omongnyeo ([The Five Dream Women], 1937)…Shim Cheong-jeon (The Story of Shim Cheong, 1937); and especially Lee Gyu-hwan’s Nageune (The Wanderer, 1937, made by the Korean Sung Bong Film Co. and ‘supervised’ by the Japanese Shinkō Studio’s Suzuki Shigeyoshi) had begun to attract the attention of audiences in Japan and Manchuria. Based on its commercial success, and the fact that it was considered by the Japanese film industry

12 _{Shōchiku is one of Japan’s leading film and theater companies. It was founded by Ōtani}

Takejirō (大谷竹次郎) and Shirai Matsujirō (白井松次郎) in 1895.

13 _{Tōhō is a Japanese film and theater production and distribution company which was founded in}

1932 by Kobayashi Ichizō as Tokyo-Takarazuka Theater Company or東京宝塚劇場株式会社.

as the ‘first outstanding work from Korea,’ Shinkō had planned to export Nageune to Europe and the United States.15

From the passage, it looks like Manchuria was a large market for film produced in the other colonies. After importing Nageune, in 1938 Man’ei signed contracts with Korea and Germany respectively for a regular relationship to exchange films between each other. Besides these places, Man’ei also established partnerships with China and Taiwan.16

Generally speaking, Man’ei produced films for three agendas—Entertainment, Culture and Education, and News. According to Xianwen Huang’s analysis, Man’ei produced a total of 108 entertainment films in contrast to 189 of other kinds of films at that time.17 _{The number of entertainment films is more than the number of any of the}

other kinds. As a result, it is apparent that the original motivation for Man’ei to make films was for the purpose of entertainment. After Amakasu took charge of Man’ei, he asked for help from many experienced Japanese film producers and staff. Amakasu also started to train Man’ei’s own Chinese directors such as Zhou Xiaopo 周曉波 (1916-

1950?) and Zhu Wenshun 朱文順 (1920-1995)18 to produce various films. In addition, he

further established a school to train new actors and actresses in Manchuria. The school

15 _{Brian Yecies, and Ae-Gyung Shim, Korea's Occupied Cinemas, 1893-1948 (New York:}

Routledge, 2011), 97.

16 _{See Gu, Quan, and Chang Hu, Man Ying--Guo Ce Dian Ying Mian Mian Guan, 71-2.} 17 _{Xianwen Huang, “‘Manyin,’ ‘Mantei’ de Jilupian Gaishuo,” Journal of East Asian Libraries}

142 (2007): 15.

18 _{See Takeshi Yamaguchi, Aishū No Manshū Eiga: Manshūkoku Ni Saita Katsudōyatachi No}

Sekai 哀愁の満州映画: 満州国に咲いた活動屋たちの世界 (Tō kyō: Santen Shobō, 2000), 88-

trained more than 160 performers in total, most of whom were Chinese.19 Before

Manchukuo and Man’ei came to an end, the institution produced more than three hundred films and became one of the best film production companies in northeast Asia. However, Man’ei met its doom after the defeat of the Japanese empire in 1945. From 1937 to 1945, Man’ei lasted only for eight years.