CHINA NIGHTS kicks off new film series at Japan Society tonight

Globus Film Series 2015

Stories from the War Series

The Most Beautiful: The War Films of Shirley Yamaguchi & Setsuko Hara

China Nights © Courtesy of Toho Co., Ltd.

China Nights

Directed by Osamu Fushimizu

With Shirley Yamaguchi (as Ri Koran), Kazuo Hasegawa

Japan, 1940, 126 minutes

35mm, b&w, in Japanese with live English subtitles

When: Saturday, March 21st @ 7:00 PM

Where: Japan Society

333 East 47th Street, NYC

(Between 1st and 2nd Avenues)

Map

China Nights is the opening film of the  of the 2015 Globus Film Series The Most Beautiful: The War Films of Shirley Yamaguchi & Setsuko Hara. It will be shown tonight at Japan society NY at 7 PM and will be followed by a reception.

China Nights was the second film in what came to be known as the “Continental Trilogy,” along with Song of the White Orchid and Vow in the Desert. All three are national allegories centered on a romance between the Japanese star Kazuo Hasegawa and Shirley Yamaguchi (Ri Koran). Like its predecessor, the film centers on misunderstanding, mistrust and the redemptive power of romance. Yamaguchi plays a rebellious young woman, who comes around to appreciate the Japanese through Hasegawa’s tough love. In the famous turning point of the film, Yamaguchi turns love-struck with Hasegawa (and awestruck by Japanese goodwill) with a slap in the face. While this is a convention of Japanese prewar cinema, the allegorical nature of this project led to quite different interpretations in Japan and China. Despite this bit of cultural blindness on the part of the Japanese filmmakers, they cleverly crafted different dénouements for the film; in the Chinese version the lovers live happily ever after, and in the Japanese version Yamaguchi commits suicide. Not surprisingly, the Chinese saw the film as a slap in the face. China Nights was one of the main reasons for Yamaguchi’s death sentence after the war.

Click here for further info about the film and to order tickets.

For information about the 2015 Globus Film Series The Most Beautiful: The War Films of Shirley Yamaguchi & Setsuko Hara, which is part of the  Stories from the War Series (see below), click here.

Stories from the War
Marking the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII, Japan Society presents the Society-wide series Stories from the War. Encompassing theater performances, film screenings, lectures, panels and educational opportunities for young people, programming from January to August explores history and considers challenging issues that the U.S. and Japan faced surrounding WWII through a contemporary lens.