When the time comes, even a rat becomes a tiger.
(Japanese proverb)
While the film industries from Bombay westwards to Hollywood knew each other very well and regularly compared and assessed products, the East Asian film industry, for a long time, had led a life of its own – and encountered little regard in other countries. Only the competition for the – potentially – huge markets in China and Java would eventually change that.
Even before the turn of the century, an indigenous Japanese film industry had begun to develop, mainly based on Tokyo. Initially influenced by traditional theatre, Japanese movies from the start had to contest with foreign products, which came into country from Europe and the US, while indigene products would hardly sell in non-Asian context.
The Chinese film industry, based on Shanghai, had to fight with the same problems – and the additional burden that vast tracts of the country were too poor or desolate to support cinemas. Warlordism had – early on – led to movies being used for propaganda purposes, a tendency strongly reinforced during General Chiang’s rule.
In contrast, liberal Japan had allowed free artistic development – and the growth of two overarching film trusts, the Nikkatsu Corporation and the Shochiku Company, which – applying methods copied from Hollywood in the early 1920ies – had, acting in close convention – factually as one trust, monopolised the Japanese movie market, had banned foreign films from their cinemas – and were aggressively distributing their products in China, Vietnam, Siam and the former Dutch East Indies.
While in Vietnam Nikkatsu and Shochiku were just building cinemas where exclusively their movies were to be shown – the very few cinemas existing since the time of French rule could safely be ignored, and in Siam the situation was similar, the situation in China and the former Dutch East Indies was quite different.
Movie theatres in the Dutch East Indies – mainly on Java only, however – existed since the early days of film making and there was a long tradition of importing movies from Europe and the USA. Failing to buy out the owners of these theatres, Nikkatsu and Shochiku were forced to erect their own ones – and had to accept also showing European and American films in them, because otherwise the audience would fail to show up.
In China, the former state of Manchukuo had been the door opener for Nikkatsu and Shochiku. Consequently, northern China had been firmly monopolised by the Japanese trusts and their cinema chains. But in the centre and the south, Shanghai – with support of American and European funds – had managed maintaining its ground, especially in the industrial hot spot of Guangdong, which meant that in this area also American and European movies were shown.
That in turn had, after unification, led to disaffection in northern China, where the audience was tired of being shown Japanese movies only. Subsequently, Shanghai – often invited by local communities – had started movie theatre construction in northern China, forcing Nikkatsu and Shochiku to open their cinemas for Shanghai and foreign movies, a trend which soon had spread to Korea and mainland Japan – and leading to a movement inside the Japanese studios to adapt closer to international trends – and even to ask European and American directors to work in Tokyo.
Thus, in the early 1930ies, East Asian cinema had begun a process of assimilation to the standards set by Hollywood, Babelsberg and Twickenham.