Hong Kong Conquered

Submitted by David on Tue, 12/13/2011 - 10:54

The current HKFA newsletter, #58, describes 'Hong Kong conquered', the only film made in Hong Kong during the Japanese occupation. Excerpts:

According to the Japanese Movie Database, Hong Kong Conquered was screened on 19 November 1942 in Japan. In Hong Kong it came to the cinemas on 8 December 1942, purportedly to mark the anniversary of the bombing of the Pearl Harbour. [...]

For a long time, the whereabouts of the film were unknown. Most scholars believed that it had been destroyed. Others speculated that it was confiscated by the US military and is now stored in the US. As it turns out, the National Film Center of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, had kept an incomplete copy of 36 minutes long. I was fortunate enough to have my request to see the film approved. [...] Below are the notes of my viewing of the film, which I share below with reserahcers and scholars as a basis for more thorough discussion to come in the future.

Read the whole article in issue 58 of the HKFA newsletter.

Thanks to Geoff Emerson for pointing this out.