chiense northeast history Research Papers (original) (raw)
In this article, I will explore the history of Man’ei from the perspective of modern colonialism and conduct a case study on the artificial identity of “Li Xianglan.” As Hannah Arendt writes in The Origin of Totalitarianism, the capital... more
In this article, I will explore the history of Man’ei from the perspective of modern colonialism and conduct a case study on the artificial identity of “Li Xianglan.” As Hannah Arendt writes in The Origin of Totalitarianism, the capital expansion is an endless process, in which the expansion itself becomes both the means and aim. Eventually, it will devour all (AHRENDT 1951: 333–350). In this sense, the rising and demise of Man’ei and Li Xianglan serve as a vivid illustration. The focus of this study is nevertheless on the existent Man’ei feature films. According to target audiences, Man’ei coproduced a number of location-driven films. I choose Winter Jasmine, Chi-na Night and Sayon’s Bell as regional samples for analysing and discussing Man’ei’s gendered nationalist motif. I argue that Japanese adopts a differentiated geopolitics respectively in Manchu, mainland China and Taiwan. In the puppet Manchukuo, Ja-pan adopts a modern colonialism and is prone to build a seemingly equal and har-mony relationship with Manchurians. Accordingly, in Winter Jasmine a modern and exotically attractive image of Manchukuo is purposely constructed. On contrary, in Taiwan Japan continues the outdated trade colonialism. In Sayon’s Bell, through the brave, beautiful and pro-Japan patriotic Taiwanese girl Sayon, Taiwan serves as a reliable raw material reservoir for Japanese empire. The recent acquired mainland China, however, as showed in China Night is backward, damaged and dangerous, thence needs to be violently conquered and tamed. Notable is Iwasaki Akira’s (1903–1981) exceptional realistic criticism in Winter Jasmine.