Introduction

This chapter examines the historical, social, cultural, and intellectual constitution of the first postwar pan-Asian cinema network during the two decades after the Korean War armistice in July 1953. It argues that Asia's film cultures and industries were shaped by the practice of transnational collaboration and competition between newly independent and colonial states, with financial and administrative support from US institutions. It also looks at the network of motion picture executives, creative personnel, policy makers, and intellectuals in Asia at the height of the Cold War and beyond. The chapter shows how Asians aspired to rationalize and industrialize a system of mass production by initiating a regional organization. It identifies the cultural, economic, and political logic that gave rise to and modified the Federation of Motion Picture Producers in Southeast Asia and the Southeast Asian Film Festival.

The FPA, US Propaganda, and Postwar Japanese Cinema

This chapter recounts how Nagata Masaichi, president of Daiei Studio in Japan, pitched the idea of founding the Federation of Motion Picture Producers in Southeast Asia (FPA) and an annual Southeast Asian Film Festival. It discusses the consensus among American foreign officers stationed in Asia that communists had infiltrated the Japanese film industry since the end of the US occupation of Japan in April 1952. It also describes the activities of the “Reds” in the Japanese motion picture industry that is considered a threat to the United States' strategic Cold War interests in the Asia-Pacific region. The chapter cites Rashomon, which won the award for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars and elicited simultaneous respect and jealousy from other nations in the region. It elaborates how the unprecedented success of Rashomon rapidly established Nagata's presence in the Japanese film industry.

The Asia Foundation’s Motion Picture Project

This chapter investigates how and to what extent the Asia Foundation (TAF) and its field agents covertly acted to construct an alliance of anticommunist motion picture producers in Asia. It explores how US government–led Cold War cultural policies influenced the Asian regional film industry in the 1950s. It also scrutinizes the ways TAF agents responded to the various needs of local film executives and negotiated with the constantly changing political, social, and cultural environments in the region during the project's early activities. The chapter reviews the origin of TAF, the Committee for a Free Asia (CFA), which is intended to advance US foreign policy interests in Asia. It discusses the CFA's core activities, which include the broadcasting of Radio Free Asia.

Epilogue

This chapter recounts how Chinese cinema developed rapidly in the new era and how filmmakers were able to denounce the brutality of the Gang of Four during the Cultural Revolution. It details the beginning of China's Fifth Generation cinema as the first postwar film movement in China to place Chinese cinema on the map of world cinema. It also discusses how the late 1970s brought major transformations in the regional film cultures and industries, such as the Hong Kong International Film Festival, which was launched at the City Hall in in June 1977. The chapter refers to The Man from Hong Kong as the Australian film industry's first attempt to collaborate with its Asian counterparts in the early 1970s. It explains how the entire Filipino film industry had to struggle with the Philippines's first lady, Imelda Marcos, and her ambitious project, the First Manila International Film Festival.

Projecting Asian Cinema to the World

This chapter examines Unheeded Cries, South Korea's official submission to the fourth San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF) in 1960, which tells the story of postwar orphans in the slums of Seoul. It discusses the Berlinale, San Francisco, and Asian Film festivals that consistently invited South Korean films to their competition sections during the first half of the 1960s. It also mentions the occupied force's cultural representative, Oscar Martay, who promoted Berlin as the Western cultural showcase of the East. The chapter reviews how SFIFF was organized and managed by Irving “Bud” Levin, whose ultimate aim was to raise his profile to become an international-level figure. It elaborates the Asia Foundation's (TAF) attempt to use SFIFF to showcase non-communist and ideologically correct Asian films for mainstream American society.

Hong Kong, Hollywood, and the End of the Network

This chapter focuses on the Hong Kong film industry, which has been guided by the principle of positive non-interventionism. It describes the Shaw Brothers, which was built under the Hong Kong version of laissez-faire economic policy in the 1960s. It also discusses the flexibility and relaxed atmosphere that led studios to experiment with the Hong Kong film industry's unique need to satisfy transnational Chinese communities in East and Southeast Asia, which helped it quickly gain global currency. The chapter emphasizes Hong Kong as one of the competing media capitals due to its status as a nexus for economic and cultural flows within and between Chinese societies through the twentieth century. It explores how the unprecedented growth of the Shaw Brothers in the 1960s paralleled Hong Kong's rising status as a financial center in the region.

The Rise and Demise of a Developmental State Studio

This chapter introduces five motion picture studios that stood out in Asia at the beginning of the 1960s, such as Shin Films in South Korea, GMP and CMPC in Taiwan, and Shaw Brothers and MP&GI in Hong Kong and Singapore. It examines how film studios in the region aspired to implement the rationalized and industrialized system of mass-producing motion pictures known as the Hollywood studio system. It also explains that the Hollywood studio system evolved in the United States to handle film production, distribution, and exhibition during the first three decades of the twentieth century. The chapter recounts how the studio system became a highly efficient system that produced feature films, newsreels, animations, and shorts to supply its mass-produced motion pictures to subsidized theaters. It describes Fordism as the famous American system of mass production with particular American circumstances.

It’s Oscar Time in Asia!

This chapter refers to Japan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and the Republic of China (Taiwan) as six member countries to send fifteen feature films to the Southeast Asian Film Festival. It cites that the Indonesian entry After the Curfew was cancelled from the festival at the last minute due to objections of the Indonesian government toward Indonesian–Japanese cooperation. It also describes the magnificent Tokyo Kaikan as the main venue for the festival, which is an opulent building known as one of the architectural symbols of Japan's westernization. The chapter reviews film journals during the 1950s, which noted that the films shown at festivals were reviewed not as individual filmmakers' works of art, but as products of countries. It talks about the film adaptation of The Golden Demon, which is considered one of the most successful and best-received novels of the Meiji Era.

Constructing the Anticommunist Producers’ Alliance

This chapter explains the strategic significance of Hong Kong to the Asia Foundation (TAF), which was attributed to its geographical, political, and economic weight among overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia. It mentions Robert Blum, who understood the importance of Hong Kong as the primary center in Asia for the production of Chinese media in the Mandarin language. It also talks about the film industry in Hong Kong that had been believed to be heavily dominated by communist producers as it had been subsidized by Chinese communist capital. The chapter identifies film production companies, such as Great Wall Pictures, The Phoenix Studio, and Dragon Horse, that had been markedly successful in local markets since the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. It discusses how Great Wall Pictures was cofounded by Zhang Shankun, who is known as the king of Chinese cinema in wartime Shanghai.