Struggles over foreign films and film culture in wartime colonial Seoul (1937–1941)

Abstract

ABSTRACT After the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937), the Japanese government restricted the importation of foreign films into Japan and its colonies. Wartime regulations influenced not just film trade between Japan and the Western countries, but also brought about further changes with regard to distribution and exhibition in colonial Korea. Seoul, the capital of colonial Korea, enjoyed the largest concentration of movie theatres on the Korean peninsula. As a local market of the Japanese empire, theatres in Seoul were directly affected by the changing dynamics of war. The unstable situation of the distribution and screening of foreign films continued until the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941 when commerce between Hollywood and Japan collapsed completely. This essay examines how imperial Japan controlled film imports and its impact on the screening of foreign films in colonial Seoul during wartime, while also discussing the complexities of wartime film culture as well as political and economic asymmetries affecting colonial Korea and mainland Japan.