Ri Kōran (film)

Ri Kōran
Genre Biographical film
Created by Ogawa Osamu
Based on Ri Kouran wo Ikite: Watashi no Rirekisho by Yamaguchi Yoshiko
(Nikkei Inc., 2004)
Written by Takeyama You
Directed by Horikawa Tonko
Starring Aya Ueto
Composer(s) Hattori Takayuki
Country of origin Japan
Original language(s) Japanese
Chinese
No. of episodes 2
Production
Executive producer(s) Ogawa Osamu
Producer(s) Hashimoto Kaori
Tsubaki Norikazu
Tano Masanori
Camera setup Multiple-camera setup
Release
Original network TV Tokyo
Audio format Stereo
First shown in February 11, 2007
Original release February 11 – February 12, 2007

Ri Kōran (Japanese: 李香蘭 Hepburn: Ri Kōran) is a two-part historical and biographical film portraying the turbulent life and times of legendary pan-Asian singer and actress Ri Koran. A tragic figure pitted into the limelight of fame by the unpredictable forces of history, Ri is caught between competing nationalisms and political conflicts, her life and career sculpted by the turbulence of war and global power shifts. Loosely based on Otaka's memoir Ri Kouran wo Ikite: Watashi no Rirekisho, the two-episode film production was directed by Horikawa Tonko and starred Ueto Aya as Ri Koran, first broadcasting in Japan by TV Tokyo on February 11 and 12, 2007. Subtitled versions were subsequently made available online to pan-Asian audiences on major Asian video sharing platforms.

Plot

The film follows Ri Koran's life from childhood to adulthood, portraying her tragic identity crisis and internal cross-cultural conflict. Born as Yamaguchi Yoshiko in 1920 to well-educated Japanese expatriates in increasingly Japanese-dominated northeastern China, she was raised in a multiethnic, transnational social circle consisting of various Chinese, Japanese and European acquaintances, many of whom hail from an intellectual or artistic background. The film details her friendship with Lyuba, the daughter of a Russian aristocratic family exiled by the Russian Revolution and learned music from the Italian soprano Madam Podresov, who was married into exiled Russian aristocracy.

Her father was an expert in Chinese history and literature, and belonged to a group of transnational Japanese intellectuals who wanted to build a pan-Asian utopia through Sino-Japanese cooperation. While her family was very fond and close to Chinese culture, as a child, she witnesses the brutalities of Japanese colonialism and imperialism against Chinese people firsthand, epitomized in a violent scene where her friendly Chinese neighbour was tied to a tree and bloodily beaten by Japanese soldiers for suspected anti-Japanese activities. These traumatic episodes cause her to internalize her Japanese heritage as a marker of oppression, inducing guilt in the young child.

In 1931, Japan invades northeastern China and establishes the pro-Japanese puppet state Manchukuo. At this time, Yoshiko was enrolled in a Beijing high school under the Chinese name Pan Shuhua, and was assumed to be Chinese by most of her peers. At a student gathering passionately denouncing Japanese aggression, Yoshiko was asked what she would do if Japanese troops reached Beijing. She replies, "I want to stand atop Beijing's city walls and have bullets pierce through my body." Her classmates enthusiastically applaud her, assuming she meant she would use her own body to defend Beijing against Japanese invasion. However, as visually represented through a fiery dream sequence where Chinese and Japanese bullets shatter her from both sides, she was really expressing her helplessness in being caught in the crossfires of two nations she loved dearly.

As she blossoms into a beautiful young lady, the Manchukuo Film Association, or Man'ei for short, recruits her, and she swiftly rises to fame as a popular singer and film actress. She uses the Chinese name Li Xianglan or its Japanese pronunciation equivalent Ri Koran as her stage name during the Manchukuo era. However, in that highly politicized era, becoming a pop cultural icon entailed becoming a propaganda tool for powerful forces beyond Ri Koran's control. Ri Koran starred in many Man'ei films that promoted Manchukuo's official ideology and multiethnic unity policy. Ri's rise to fame was one of the most successful projects that sought to embody the theme of ethnic harmony in Man'ei films. She represented the pan-Asian imaginary rather than a fixed singular ethnic figure, typically involving a non-Japanese female character falling in love with a Japanese male. She was named the "Goodwill Ambassador for Manchukuo-Japanese Friendship," a title she cherished and truly believed in. However, even as a renowned celebrity, she faced racism; on a trip to Japan, Ri Koran was dressed in a qipao, and was stopped by a Japanese soldier. Upon checking her papers, the soldier angrily reprimanded and insulted her, shouting that a superior Japanese should not wear the fashion of the inferior races. These episodes slowly made Ri Koran realize the hypocrisy of the official rhetoric, and she feels guilty of representing propaganda characters.

The war draws to a close with Japan's defeat and the collapse of Manchukuo. Ri Koran was tried as a treasonous Chinese war criminal, but upon the Chinese authorities' realization that she is ethnically Japanese, she is deported to Japan. The film fast forwards to the twenty-first century, when Sino-Japanese relations have normalized, and Ri Koran is able to revisit the land of her childhood, now with the name Otaka Yoshiko, which she acquired through marriage to diplomat Otaka Hiroshi. In a cemetery, she runs into her childhood friend Lyuba, and the film closes with the two having an emotional reunion.

Cast

Reception

The film received TV Tokyo's average viewership rates of 9.1% for Ep. 1 and 8.5% for Ep. 2[1]

References

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