from film colony to film sphere 39
Ko Min: “You only say that now because business is good. But China’s at
war, its culture is weak and in turmoil.”
Father: “If we cooperate with Japan, business will come back.”
The message is clear. China’s future prosperity lies with Japanese technology
and capital. When seen from a Japanese point of view, this may have seemed like
a logical, even attractive argument. Japan had only narrowly avoided Western
colonization and had risen to “fi rst class” nation status precisely by linking up
with foreign capital and technology only decades before. Mr. Yang’s enlightened,
almost visionary status is shown to result directly from his embracing Japanese
technology and ability to assimilate Japanese ways. He seems vaguely aware that
he is perceived as a Japanese collaborator, but his “vision” stems in part from his
ability to look beyond the stigma that other Chinese, including his own son, have
attached to his assimilation of and collaboration with the Japanese.
Mr. Yang functions as a racist stereotype insofar as his character does not seem
to be motivated either by patriotism or conviction of purpose so much as a desire
to do “good business.” In this fi lm and others like it, there is a palpable assumption
that what motivates Chinese basically is personal economic profi t. Yet rather than
condemn Yang’s attitude as simply greedy, the fi lm celebrates it. Yang’s brand of
greed is good as long as it serves the needs of Greater East Asia. Further, linking
capital and technology between Japan and its imperial territories is presented as
an attractive business proposal, but one that also happens to extend the empire.
Throughout the fi lm the Japanese essentially challenge the Chinese to “do
more for China” than the Japanese have done. And throughout the 1930s, theoriz-
ing how best to modernize China was a topic of hot debate among Japanese propa-
gandists. Chinese intellectuals also debated the relative merits of modernization.
Films like The Green Earth make it clear that the topic of modernizing China
was not only a Japanese debate but a Chinese one as well. What is interesting in
the fi lm is how the Japanese are, in effect, invoking a form of Chinese national-
ism without presenting it as Japanese propaganda. By redefi ning collaboration as
Chinese patriotism, it follows that those who love China will naturally want to
help anyone who helps China. Conversely, by this logic, those who oppose Japan
helping China, or dare to resist, are pronounced “ignorant” and immediately la-
beled as an impediment to modern progress. Izawa Kozo, the Japanese secretary
to the executive of the board of directors of the construction company, berates a
coalition of local Chinese whose opposition essentially threatens construction of
the canal. He claims they are not doing enough for China.
I know you’re worried about rising prices and the scarcity of goods. But
who do you think is responsible for that? I tell you it’s those who oppose
the construction of the canal. Who do you think has been trying to keep
prices down? We have, the Canal Construction Committee! What the
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