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Chronology of Japanese Cinema
1899

March 11

Conventional Japanese film history tomes cite this date as the first reference made to cinema in Japanese law, concretely the Copyright Law (Chosakukenho, renamed now as the old Copyright Law) enacted on this day and enforced on 15 July. As a result, through these publications, we have been taught how one section of this law reads that those that "reproduce or exhibit another person's motion picture will be considered plagiarists". However this section, as Aaron Gerow rightly points out, was not included in the original version but a decade later in the first revision of the law on 5 July 1910, on chapter 2, article 32, paragraph 2, to be more precise. Here "katsudo shashin" (motion picture) was included as one of the products, along with books, photographs, paintings and so on, to be protected by copyright.

Sources:
Yoshio Tanikawa, Nenpyo Eiga 100-Nenshi, Futosha, 1993, p. 14.
Aaron Gerow, From Misemono to Zygomar, in Silent Cinema and the Politics of Space, edited by Jennifer M. Bean, Laura Horak and Anupama Kapse, University Press, 2014, pp. 165 and 181.
Tomoyuki Sadahiro, Chosakukenho no Kaisei: Chosakukenho 4 March 1899.
Tomoyuki Sadahiro, Chosakukenho no Kaisei: Chosakukenho 5 July 1910.

May

The Nihon Eiga Terebi Gijutsu Kyokai's publication Nihon Eiga Gijutsu Shi informs us that Tsunekichi Shibata filmed for the advertising agency Hiromeya a short documentary of sumo wrestlers at Tokyo's Ryogoku Ekoin. This film was released at the Kinki-kan theater in Kanda district, Tokyo, resulting in a huge commercial success. Much better documented is another documentary shot exactly a year later at the same sumo hall, this time by Tsuneji Tsuchiya, along with Shibata, one of the first Japanese film cameramen. Tsuchiya had returned to Japan from America the previous year bringing with him an Urban Bioscope (both a projector and camera). An 11 minutes print of Tsuchiya's film, an edited version from the early Showa period, is kept at Osaka's Planet Eiga Shiryo Toshokan (Planet Film Archive Library).

Sources:
Nihon Eiga Terebi Gijutsu Kyokai, Nihon Eiga Gijutsu Shi, 1997, p. 22.
MOMAT, Hakkutsu Sareta Eiga-tachi / Cinema: Lost and Found 1999.
Fumio Kobayashi, Nihon Eiga Kigyo no Genryu - Sono Shiteki Kosatsu / Origin of Japanese Movie Enterprise - Its Historical View in Shakai Gagaku, 47, 1991-08-28, pp. 164, published by the Institute for the Study of Humanities & Social Sciences, Doshisha University.

June 1

Edison Company newsreels about the Spanish-American War in Cuba and The Philippines Revolution are imported from London by Yoshizawa Shoten and released at the Kinki-kan theater in Kanda, Tokyo, with the title BEISEI SENSO KATSUDO DAI SASHIN. Later they were shown at Yokohama's Minato-za theater. As opposed to the mere film actualities that had been filling movie programs until then, these are regarded the first news films to open in the country. Patrick Loughney points out how 42 percent of the 306 Edison Company productions made between 1898-1899 were devoted to the subject of the Spanish-American War. Before their arrival in Japan they had met such level of success in the United States that the country's film industry "reached new heights of public acceptance and maturity that it would never lose" (Loughney, 85).

Fully aware of this development, on 28 July 1900 the Yoshizawa Shoten dispatched cameramen Tsunekichi Shibata and Komakichi Fukaya to China to cover the Boxer Revolution. The resulting product of this film adventure abroad was HOKUSHIN JIHEN KATSUDO DAISHASHIN (Grand Motion Picture on the Boxer Rebellion), considered the first news films shot by a Japanese. Though it met with considerable success after its release on 18 October that year at the Kinki-kan, it did not set any immediate trend for the making of more documentaries by Japanese producers. Venues organizing moving pictures shows were still depending almost exclusively on imported films. War-themed productions, however, seemed particularly attractive to local audiences. Half a decade later film news, filmed re-creations and rensageki spectacles about the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5) provoked the first film boom in Japanese history.

Sources:
Yohohama Kaiko Shiryokan / Yokohama Archives of History, Yokohama ni Eigakan ga Nakkata Koro.
Yoshio Tanikawa, Nenpyo Eiga 100-Nenshi, Futosha, 1993, p. 14.
Hiroshi Komatsu, Some Characteristics of Japanese Cinema before World War I, in Reframing Japanese Cinema, Ed. Arthur Nolletti and David Desser, Indiana UP, 1992, p. 236-7.
Patrick Loughney, 1898-1899 Movies and Entrepeneurs, in American Cinema, 1890-1909: Themes and Variations, Ed. André Gaudreault, Rutgers University Press, 2009, p. 84-5.

June 13

Up until recently, 20 June 1899 and Tokyo's Kabuki-za theater had been believed, originally proposed by Junichiro Tanaka, perhaps the most influential Japanese film historian, the date and place of the first public screening of Japanese-made films. Two main sources confirmed this theory. The first one is an article published in the Hochi Shinbun on 13 July 1899 advertising the screening of film actualities, featuring titles, performers and sponsors, at the Meiji-za theatre between July 14-31. This article also adds that the same show had been previously presented at the Kabuki-za. The second source is an article that appeared in the the Yomiuri Shinbun on 27 June carrying a short description of a film programme at the Kabuki-za which included films of dances by maiko from the Dotonbori area in Osaka. The films are believed to have been OSAKA DOTONBORI NO ZU and OSAKA MAIKO NO ODORI, both also part of the Meiji-za's programme presented a few days later.

There is, however, evidence that earlier performances might have taken places at alternative venues. Film historian and collector Yoshinobu Tsukada argues for a different date based on data found in newspaper articles. As Aaron Gerow explains Tsukada: "painstakingly accumulated over his lifetime most of the newspaper and magazine articles printed in Japan about the motion pictures before and in the first year after the medium was imported into Japan, and he published them in his lifework, Nihon Eigashi no Kenkyu (A Study of Japanese Film History)" (Gerow, 159). Tsukada proposes 13 June 1899 as the first exhibit of domestic films which was held at the Hongo Chuo Kaido (Hongo central church). Although there are no records of which films were shown at the Hongo Chuo Kaido between June 13-16, this date has been supported by an article appearing in the Tokyo Asahi Shinbun on 15 June which made reference to a screening of over 60 new imported American productions and the addition, for the first time, to the line-up of Japanese-made works (I have also discussed here the authorship of the Japanese films exhibited in these shows). Based on this, on 11 June 2011 the Eiga Hozon Kyokai (Film Preservation Society) organized an event at the church to commemorate this historical event. Works such MOMIJIGARI (1899) and SHIGEKI NANKO KETSUBETSU (1921) were screened, followed by a discussion chaired by Tokyo National Film Center senior researcher Yoshiro Irie.

This new date for the first exhibition of Japanese films is hardly conclusive as Manabu Ueda points to newspaper articles alluding to screenings of geisha dances before the one at Hongo Chuo Kaido. A handbill for a performance organized by Koyo Komada on 12 May 1899 at the Wakatake-za theater in Shizuoka City, though not listing any film titles, announced the inclusion of recorded musical performances by famous geishas from Tokyo's Yoshiwara, Kyoto's Gion, Osaka's Minami, Nagoya and even Shizuoka, between the film screening intervals. Furthermore, an article published in the Shizuoka Minyu Shinbun on 16 May reported on the projection of new imported films from the United States along with domestic novelties such as Tokyo Yanagibashi's geisha and Shizuoka's Ryogaemachi geisha performances.

The same amount of confusion has been generated regarding the actual promoter of these film events. Orthodox history books named benshi pioneer Koyo Komada, through his company Nihon Sossen Katsudo Shashin Kai, as the sole organizer of these film shows, whereas the advertising agency Hiromeya is described in other sources as the driving force behind these first exhibitions of local film works. In reality, Komada was working for Hiromeya, first as a music band leader, which entrusted him with the promotion of Edison's Vitascope films on a provincial tour that began in June 1897. Two years later, after Hiromeya commissioned the Konishi's photographic store to film dances of geisha, Komada embarked on a second provincial tour. The handbills for these film shows that Komada himself created featured Hiromeya as a sponsor. At the time of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5) Komada began to distance himself from the advertising agency.

Sources:
Yoshiro Irie, Saiko no Nihon Eiga ni Tsuite - Konishi Honten Seisaku no Katsudoshashin (The Earliest Japanese Movie �\ Motion Pictures Produced by Konishi Honten), MOMAT Research, 2009, Vol 13, pp.65-91.
Usui, Michiko, The Roots of Japanese Movies as Seen in the Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum Collection.
Manabu Ueda, Sosoki Eiga Kogyo no Shikosei - Komada Koyo no Chiho Jungyo o Meguru -Kosatsu-, Monbukagakusho Shiritsu Daigaku Gakujutsu Kenkyu Kodoka Suishin Jigyo Gakujutsu Frontier Suishin Jigyo, Nichio Nichia Hikaku Engeki Sogokenkyou Project Seika Hokokushu, Waseda Daigaku Engeki Hakubutsukan, May 2008, pp.136-144.
Aaron Gerow, From Misemono to Zygomar, in Silent Cinema and the Politics of Space, edited by Jennifer M. Bean, Laura Horak and Anupama Kapse, University Press, 2014, pp. 159.
Eiga Hozon Kyokai (Film Preservation Society), Eiga to Bunkyoku: Nihon Eiga no Hatsukokai.

August 11

After the screening at the Meiji-za theatre (14-31 July), Koyo Komada embarked on a provincial tour taking his film show to Yokohama's Tsuta-za theatre (from 1 August), Hongo's Haruki-za (11-25 August), Akasaka's Engi-za (1-24 September) and Nagoya's Misono-za (from 30 September). Local newspapers reported on films that were not initially included in the Meiji-za's programme advertised in the Hochi Shinbun which listed 11 Japanese-made films. Some of the films described in these newspapers did appear in a flyer designed by Komada himself at the time to promote his shows. This flyer, preserved in the Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum, features illustrations and explanations of 22 films, 9 of them Japanese. It also is believed that at some places where the screenings were set up dances by local geisha were also filmed and added to the line-up. Thus, the whole process of filming, developing and printing should have been completed rapidly.

On 12 August the Miyako Shinbun reported two new films of geisha dances, SATSUMA ODORI performed by Sukiya-cho's geisha and KIOIJISHI (lion dance) performed by Kobu-cho's geisha, shown at Hongo's Haruki-za theatre, later known as Hongo-za. The dance NUNO-SARASHI, also performed by Kobu-cho's geisha, is believed to have been shown at the same time. Shiro Asano affirmed that he had photographed NUNO-SARASHI and KIOIJISHI, while historian Junichiro Tanaka attributes the work SATSUMA ODORI to Tsunekichi Shibata. On 10 September the Chuo Shinbun reported a new geisha dance film (KIYOMOTO UME NO HARU) screened at Akasaka's Engi-za theatre (1-24 September), performed by geisha from the Tamachi area in Asakasa and possibly shot by Shibata. The Fuso Shinbun on two different editions, 27 September and 3 October, carried news about several films being screened at Nagoya's Misono-za theatre from 30 September. These were NIHONBASHI-DORI MITSUI-TEN HANJO NO KOKEI (titled MITSUI GOFUKUTEN HANBO NO SHINKEI in Komada's flyer), NIHON KENSHI GEKIKEN NO ZU, dances performed by Seien-ren geisha from the Ozu district and Kaku-ren geisha from the Chojamachi district in Nagoya, SUKUBURO HIJO ENKAI NO ZU (titled SUKUBURO HIJO NARU HAMA-CHO OKADA ENKAI NO ZU in Komada's flyer) and NIHONJO NO KURONURI also known as SHOSEI NO KURONURI, BENCHI NO ITAZURA, described as the first Japanese film comedy.

NIHON KENSHI GEKIKEN NO ZU could have been the work of Toshimo Mitsumura as he had admitted to have filmed a kendo fight in his garden with a camera borrowed from Konishi Honten. As for the skit film SHOSEI NO KURONURI, BENCHI NO ITAZURA, Peter B. High calls it SHOSEI NO SUMIE (Schoolboy's Ink Painting) and adds that it was produced by Komada the day after INAZUMA HOBAKU NO BA (The Lightening (sic) Robber is Arrested). He also gives a description of this short film comedy "Here we see (Unpei) Yokoyama sleeping peacefully on a park bench as two youths approach and brush ink on his face. Still asleep, Yokohama turns over and falls off the bench. He awakes to find the two youths guffawing and jumps up to chase them off-screen" (High, 33)

Sources:
Yoshiro Irie, Saiko no Nihon Eiga ni Tsuite - Konishi Honten Seisaku no Katsudoshashin (The Earliest Japanese Movie �\ Motion Pictures Produced by Konishi Honten), MOMAT Research, 2009, Vol 13, pp.65-91.
Usui, Michiko, The Roots of Japanese Movies as Seen in the Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum Collection.
Peter B. High, The Dawn of Cinema in Japan, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 19, 1984, p. 33.
Manabu Ueda, Sosoki Eiga Kogyo no Shikosei - Komada Koyo no Chiho Jungyo o Meguru -Kosatsu-, Monbukagakusho Shiritsu Daigaku Gakujutsu Kenkyu Kodoka Suishin Jigyo Gakujutsu Frontier Suishin Jigyo, Nichio Nichia Hikaku Engeki Sogokenkyou Project Seika Hokokushu, Waseda Daigaku Engeki Hakubutsukan, May 2008, pp.136-144.
Junichiro Tanaka, Nihon Eiga Hattatsushi, Vol.1, Chuo Koronsha, Tokyo, 1968, p. 70.

28 November

Pioneer Japanese cinematographer Tsunekichi Shibata films three scenes from the kakubi play MOMIJIGARI (Viewing of Scarlet Maple Leaves), originated in Noh drama, featuring the kabuki actors Danjuro Ichikawa IX and Kikugoro Onoe V in the roles of princess Sharashina, in fact an ogre, and the famous warrior Komemori of the Taira clan. MOMIJIGARI was written by Mokuami Kawatake and premiered at Tokyo's Shintomi-za theatre in 1887 becoming a favorite within the kabuki repertoire by 1899. From 1 October that year the play was being performed at Tokyo's Kakubi-za. After its closing day performance on the 25, the theatre's manager Takejiro Inoue suggested to document a staging of the play in the garden of the tea house Bairin, situated behind the Kabuki-za. According to historian Junichiro Tanaka, Shibata informed him years later that the shooting had taken place on 28 November. However, Yoshinobu Tsukada, a historian completely neglected by Western research of the Japanese cinema of this period, as quoted in Manabu Ueda's Nihon Eiga Sosoki no Kogyo to Kankyaku: Tokyo to Kyoto o Chushin ni (p.191), proposes 30 November as an alternative date for the filming of MOMIJIGARI.

The print, however, had to wait until 1903 to be publicly released due to Ichikawa's extreme dislike of motion pictures. A private screening had been held earlier on 7 November 1900 at Ichikawa's residence. In July 1903, due to illness, Ichikawa had to cancel his performance in Osaka. Instead, he agreed for the film shot four years earlier to be shown. Yoshizawa Shoten initially organized a screening which also included NININ DOJOJI (Two people at Dojo Temple, Tsunekichi Shibata) at the Naka-za theatre from 7 to 15 July, although the show became so popular that it ran until 1 August. Ichikawa died on 13 September that year. Manabu Ueda quotes Denkikan's, first permanent film theatre in Japan which was operated by Yoshizawa Shoten, manager Matsunosuke Taniuchi as saying that a copy of the original print of MOMIJIGARI, owned by the advertising agency Hiromeya, was made without permission. It is believed that this unauthorized copy was the one exhibited at Naka-za theatre (Ueda, 192).

MOMIJIGARI's original print is thought to have been destroyed during the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. The existing print held by National Film Center in Tokyo was reassembled by the Nikkatsu film studio in 1927 from excerpts found in Shizuoka and Osaka. In 2006 Nikkatsu donated this edited version to the NFC. Its length of 6 minutes is close to the original version. The NFC also holds another copy, a 4 minutes version, donated by Shochiku's chairman Nobuyoshi Otani. Some sources such as the Bunka Isan Online (Cultural Heritage Online) hosted by the Agency of Cultural Affairs gives it a running time of 3 minutes and 50 seconds played at 16 frames per second and a footage length of 104.5 metres (342 feet and 13 frames)

MOMIJIGARI is considered to be the oldest surviving Japanese film, though not the oldest print, and, as Keiko I. McDonald points out, it was the first experiment of a engeki jissha eiga (films of ongoing stage action). Perhaps for this reason, on 10 July 2009, MOMIJIGARI became the first film to be designated by the Bunka Shinki-kai (Council for Cultural Affairs) as Juyo-Bunkazai (Important Cultural Property), sadly, as Aaron Gerow laments, "less because it was a film than because it, again, was a record of two illustrious actors". Gerow adds "The actual recommendation to the Minister of Education in fact categorized the film not as a film but as a "historical document" (rekishi shiryo)". This also seems to have the criteria put forward by the Council for the election of the two following films as Important Cultural Properties, SHIGEKI NANKO KETSUBETSU (A Historical play; Farewell of Nanko, 1921) and KOBAYASHI TOMIJIRO SOGI (The Funeral of Tomijiro Kobayashi, 1910)

On 29 June 2010 SHIGEKI NANKO KETSUBETSU became the second "film" to be denominated as Important Cultural Property. Again, SHIGEKI NANKO KETSUBETSU is a film recorded document divided in two parts. The first (SESSHONOMIYA DENKA KATSUDO SHASHIN TENRANKAI GOTAIRAN JIKKYO [The Prince Regent's Visit to the Motion Picture Exhibition, 3 minutes]) shows Prince Hirohito, later to become Emperor Showa, visiting on 8 December 1921 the first government-produced exhibition on cinema in Japan (20 October - 10 December 1921) held at now Tokyo National Museum within the premises of the Yushima Seido (Yushima Sacred Hall). The second part (SHIGEKI NANKO KETSUBETSU) follows briefly the prince to an open-air performance by Matsunosuke Onoe's troupe. The larger part of the footage records the staging of the scene in which Lord Kusunoki Masashige, played by Onoe, bids farewell to his son at Sakurai.

On 27 June 2011, a third film, KOBAYASHI TOMIJIRO SOGI (The Funeral of Tomijiro Kobayashi, 1910), was selected as Important Cultural Property, once more a documentary, this time chronicling the funeral of Tomijiro Kobayashi (1852-1910), founder of the Lion Corporation (formerly Kobayashi Shoten). As with SHIGEKI NANKO KETSUBETSU, its most significant value does not lie on any artistic quality of the film itself, but on its importance as a visual historical document of the funeral, attended by thousands of people, of a relevant figure of the Japanese society at the beginning of the 20th century. The film's negative that has survived to our days is thought to the original used during the shooting and, therefore, it is the oldest one known to exist in Japan. There is also a high probability that the negative of SHIGEKI NANKO KETSUBETSU, donated by Nikkatsu to the National Film Center in 2006, is the original negative filmed on 8 December 1921. If that is so, this negative film is the second oldest among existing Japanese film material.

Sources:
Keiko I. McDonald, Keiko, Japanese Classical Theater in Films, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1994), p. 38.
Junichiro Tanaka, Nihon Eiga Hattatsushi, Vol.1, Chuo Koronsha, Tokyo, 1968, p. 70-74.
Aaron Gerow, Film as an Important Cultural Property in Tangemania: Aaron Gerow's Japanese Film Page, published on-line Mar 25, 2009.
Bunka Isan Online (Cultural Heritage Online), Eiga Firumu [MOMIJIGARI].
Bunka Isan Online (Cultural Heritage Online), Eiga Firumu [NANKO KETSUBETSU].
Daisuke Miyao, The Aesthetics of Shadow: Lighting and Japanese Cinema, Duke University Press Books, 2013, pp. 50-51.
Tomonori Saiki, SHIGEKI NANKO KETSUBETSU in La luce dell´Oriente: cinema giapponese muto, 1898-1935 / Light from the East: Japanese Silent Cinema, 1898-1935, 20th Pordenone Silent Film Festival, Sacile, 13-20 October 2001.
Eric Cazdyn, The Flash of Capital: Film and Geopolitics in Japan, Duke University Press, 2002, pp 15-18 and 264.
Fumiko Tsuneishi, KOBAYASHI TOMIJIRO SOGI in Light from the East: Celebrating Japanese Cinema Shochiku 110 - Naruse 100 -- Prog. 4, 24th Pordenone Silent Film Festival, Sacile, 8-15 October 2005.
Fumiaki Itakura, [Shigeki Nanko Ketsubetsu] (1921 nen) Kanensei Nega Firumu o Dotei Suru / Identifying the Nitrate Negative Film of Shigeki Nanko Ketsubetsu (1921), Tokyo Kokuritsu Kindai Bijutsukan Kenkyu Kiyo / Bulletin of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (14), 2010, 45-55.
Manabu Ueda, Nihon Eiga Sosoki no Kogyo to Kankyaku: Tokyo to Kyoto o Chushin ni, Waseda Daigaku Shuppanbu, 2012, pp. 172, 189 and 191-2.

December

At this time the dance geisha motif that accounted for most of the Japanese productions was being replaced by kabuki cinema. One month after having filmed MOMIJIGARI, again sponsored by Koyo Komada's company Nihon Sossen Katsudo Shashin Kai, cameraman Tsunekichi Shibata films another dance extracted from the play Hana Kiso Ninin Dojoji (Two people at Dojo Temple), which was being performed by Eizaburo Onoe, later known as Baiko Onoe VI and Kakitsu Ichimura, later Uzaemon Ichimura XV, at the Kabuki-za. The two kabuki actors starred in this film which was first shown at the Kabuki-za on 7 August 1900 with the title KANE KUYO: NININ DOJOJI. The film was accompanied by a live performance of nagauta singers narrating the story. According to Hiroshi Komatsu, this was the first tinted film ever made in Japan.

Sources:
Keiko I. McDonald, Japanese Classical Theater in Films, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1994), p. 39.
Junichiro Tanaka, Nihon Eiga Hattatsushi, Vol.1, Chuo Koronsha, Tokyo, 1968, pp. 74-5.
Hiroshi Komatsu, Japan: Before the Great Kanto Earthquake, in The Oxford History of World Cinema, edited by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 177.