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Eternity
Directed by Bu Wancang
Ma-Xu Weibang
Zhu Shilin
Written by Zhou Yibai
Starring Chen Yunchang
Running time 96 min.
Country China (occupied)
Empire of Japan
Language Mandarin Chinese
IMDb profile

Eternity (Chinese: 万世流芳; pinyin: wàn shì liú fāng) is a controversial 1943 Chinese film made during the Japanese occupation of the country during Second World War. The film was a collaborative effort between the Japanese-controlled Manchukuo Film Association and Chinese filmmakers that remained in Shanghai under the Japanese-controlled Zhonglian Productions ("United China") brand.

Telling the story of the Lin Zexu and the Opium Wars, the film was Japan's attempt to make a crowd pleasing anti-western film as propaganda in Japanese-controlled areas of the Chinese mainland. Ultimately the film (and the Shanghai filmmakers) were seen as tools of the enemy once the war was over, with many involved in the production (notably directors Bu Wancang, Ma-Xu Weibang, and Zhu Shilin eventually moving to Hong Kong due to the hostile environment.

Today the film is still seen as Japanese propaganda, or more generally as anti-foreign in general.

Contents

[edit] Plot

[edit] Cast

[edit] Production history

In 1939, the Japanese had formed the China Movie Company ("Zhongdian") to make Japanese propaganda shorts. By 1941, Zhongdian signed a deal with the head of the Xinhua Film Company, Zhang Shankun, followed quickly by two other deals with the Yihua Film Company and the Guohua Film Company.[1]

[edit] Casting

The film was cast primarily with Chinese actors out of (what remained) of the Shanghai studio system (now under the control of Zhonglian). One major star cast, however, was the Japanese actress Yamaguchi Yoshiko (born in Manchuria). Though she had starred in several Chinese features already, under the name of Li Xiaoliang, Yamaguchi was a seeming outlier in the cast of Eternity. She was, therefore, a successful indication of the control the Japanese exercised over the Chinese film industry in Shanghai.(ref "Her Traces are Found Everywhere" 227, Shelly Stevenson, in Cinema and Urban Culture in Shanghai 1922-1943) The film, indeed, would catapult Li into stardom, as her earlier works had been in films so blatantly pro-Japanese, as to turn off most of the Chinese audience (Shelly, 227).

[edit] Reception

[edit] Music and Yamaguchi

[edit] Post-War impact

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Fu, p. 182

[edit] References

  • Fu, Poshek "Resistance in Collaboration: Chinese Cinema in Occupied Shanghai" in Chinese Collaboration with Japan, 1932-1945: The Limits of Accommodation. David, Barrett P. ed. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001) available at http://books.google.com/books?id=FthtSfOogBEC

[edit] External links

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Cinema of China

[[Category: Chinese films [[Category: 1943 films [[Category: Historical films [[Category: Mandarin-language films