by Yoko Ono, Senior Lecturer in Japanese and Film Studies, Oxford Brookes University, United Kingdom

The first chapter explains the dawn of Japanese cinema from 1896 to 1940, from the silent period to the first Golden Age of Japanese cinema with the arrival of ‘talkie’ films. It includes illumination of three distinctive but fundamental elements of Japanese cinema: the use of benshi off-stage narration; its relation to traditional kabuki theatre; and the existence of two film-making capitals, one in Tokyo and the other in Kyoto. The next chapter examines the peculiarity of Japanese film during wartime and problems under the American occupation (1940-1952). The third chapter surveys the second Golden Age of 1952-1960, referring to works by directors such as Akira Kurosawa and Kenji Mizoguchi. The fourth chapter gives an overview of the quiet downfall and inertia of the Japanese film industry for the following two decades. And the last chapter analyses the situation surrounding contemporary cinema since 1980.

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