Japanese Cinema’s Birth and Its Struggle Between Film and Tradition
Early Japanese Cinema and Its Battle to Preserve and Innovate Tradition
Japan is often recognized as one of the world’s leading film powerhouses, but how did its cinematic history actually begin? The story goes back to 1891, when Thomas Edison in the United States completed a prototype of the Kinetoscope. This invention was shown at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893 and had its commercial debut in New York in 1894. In 1895, the Lumière brothers in France unveiled the Cinématographe, and in 1896, the Vitascope—based on the Phantascope—was also introduced.
The arrival of these Western technologies in Japan is a bit tangled. Some sources claim that the first Kinetoscope screening took place in 1895 at the Nanji Enbujō Theater in Namba, Osaka, making it Japan’s earliest motion picture exhibition.
Another account says that in 1897, a Kobe-based merchant named Shinji Takahashi imported a device used for screenings in Osaka and Asakusa. The Vitascope was also shown in Tokyo in 1897, and that same year, a Kyoto merchant named Katsutarō Inabata brought the Cinématographe to Tokyo.
Naturally, at this introductory stage, Japan needed foreign technicians who could handle the equipment. By inviting these experts from abroad, not only were Western films screened, but momentum also grew to film local landscapes and cultural scenes.
It was around this time that filming equipment first reached Japan, most likely imported by Rokubei Konishi in Tokyo. Konishi would later become the de facto founder of Konica Corporation, now famous for introducing Japan’s first mass-produced camera in 1903 and launching its own photographic film in 1929. Originally, Konishi ran a pharmaceutical wholesale business founded by his great-grandfather, but at age 25, he became fascinated by photography’s possibilities and began selling photographic supplies alongside his main trade.
He reportedly imported filming equipment from France’s Gaumont and, with the help of foreign technicians in Japan, attempted some of the country’s earliest motion picture shoots—though the results were apparently poor and never publicly shown.
A major breakthrough arrived in 1898, when Tsunekichi Shibata, who worked in the photography department of the Mitsukoshi department store, and Shirō Asano, employed under Konishi, finally succeeded in shooting footage with the imported camera. Still, limited knowledge made the filming and developing process difficult, and the project ended somewhat incomplete. In 1899, the resulting film was sold to the advertising agency Hiromeya, which screened it at the Kabuki-za theater that June using a Vitascope.
Records indicate that the footage featured views of popular Tokyo districts like Ginza and Asakusa. Viewers were thrilled to see their own neighborhoods on screen, and the screenings were a resounding success. Sensing the potential of the medium, Hiromeya had Asano film what is considered Japan’s first narrative movie later that same year, based on an actual crime.
In 1882, Sadakichi Shimizu shook the public by becoming Japan’s first pistol-wielding robber, committing over 80 robberies and killing 5 people in Tokyo. Around sixteen years later, that incident had begun to fade from memory, but it was resurrected on film. Although the work itself no longer survives, its subject matter would leave a lasting mark on Japanese cinema.
That same year (1899), Yoshizawa Shōten produced footage of a professional sumo match in Tokyo. Screened in July, it became quite popular, since fans could now watch sumo—already a beloved sport—projected on film.
On November 28, 1899, the oldest existing Japanese film footage was recorded, capturing the Kabuki play Momijigari (“Maple Leaf Hunting”). This was also filmed by Tsunekichi Shibata.
At the time, though, many senior figures in the Kabuki world held the new medium of film in contempt, perceiving it as a shallow novelty that threatened traditional art forms. This conservative stance—resistance to adopting a new medium—by certain famed Kabuki actors would have profound implications for the future of Japanese film.
Because Kabuki is governed by strict family lineages, even exceptionally gifted actors sometimes had few chances to shine on stage. For them, turning to film was a natural next step. This movement intensified in the 1920s when the Kabuki establishment banned its actors from appearing in films. Any who defied the ban were branded as heretics and barred from returning to the Kabuki stage. One of the most notable cases was Gennosuke Sawamura.
Back in 1899, however, such prohibitions had not yet taken effect. At that time, the leading Kabuki actors—Ichikawa Danjūrō IX and Onoe Kikugorō V—were finally persuaded to permit filming on the condition that it would not be shown publicly during their lifetimes. Although they were filmed in 1899, the footage was not screened until 1903.
Their willingness to be filmed motivated other Kabuki actors to pursue cinematic recording of their own performances, ultimately leading to numerous Kabuki productions being captured on film.
Works like Momijigari, which essentially preserved stage performances on camera, might not resemble modern cinema in the strict sense. But by filming sumo matches and Kabuki plays, Japanese filmmakers gradually honed their craft—and it was this evolving expertise that ultimately set the stage for Japan’s first true film boom in the years that followed.