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Matsuoka Yosuke, Minister of Foreign Affairs, was probably the
first person to use the term the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. In July 1940, assuming his service for the second Konoe Fumimaro
cabinet, Matsuoka talked at a press conference and stated the
Japanese foreign affair policy as "to establish the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, with Japan-Manchuria-China line as its core."
In September that year, Matsuoka concluded the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy, Russo-Japanese Neutiality Pact the following in year 1941. The slogan The Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere proclaims the idealism of pan-Asiatic prosperity, but for the
Japanese government it was also part of their strategy, entering
into alliance with Germany and Italy to break the deadlock situation
in the war with China, and to expand toward South East Asia to
acquire its rich natural resources, in lands where the control
of the European colonizing powers had weakened their influence
because of the war in Europe. The majority of the Japanese people
embraced the idealism of The Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere natively, and justified their government's policy for the expansion
southward. The war that is now called the Pacific front of World
War II was called in Japan then The Great East Asia War, for the liberation of Asia from the European and American colonizers
was the proclaimed Goal.
In most of the areas under Japanese occupation, the film production
stopped. In a short while, Japanese films came to be exhibited,
and soon Japanese-sponsored newsreel were produced and exhibited.
In the areas that were not occupied, anti-Japan films were produced.
To look back the Japanese Imperial war through the history of
Asian cinema including that of Japanese film history is an attempt
of profound interest, but it is also a very difficult process
where there is always the danger of being tangled up in the complexity
of historical and political vision. We also cannot over look the
fact that in many Asian nations, a large body of filmic heritage
is lost. Most of the documentary and fiction films in this era
have the background of being produced to suit national policies,
and it may be a dangerous attempt indeed, to judge those films
by historical perspectives of our day.
In this program Imperial Japan at the Movies (our Japanese title means 'The Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere' and Cinema) and cinema, we also included many fictional films produced in
Asian nations after the war. They have anti-Japanese characteristics,
but we believe they are worth to seeing, when we keep ourselves
aware of the fact that they contributed to the needs of their
nations in their times.
-- Monma Takashi
coordinator, Imperial Japan at the Movies
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