Japanese cinema's long history of production has seen films made in a variety of genres, including melodramas, romances, gangster movies, samurai movies, musicals, horror films, and monster films. It has also produced famous names such as: Akira Kurosawa, Hayao Miyazaki, Beat Takeshi, Toshirô Mifune, Godzilla, The Ring, Akira, Rashomon, and Seven Samurai. This dictionary is an overview of the long history of Japanese cinema with entries covering key films, genres, studios, directors, performers, and other individuals.

The cinema of Japan predates that of Russia, China, and India, and it has been able to sustain itself without outside assistance for over a century. Japanese cinema's long history of production and considerable output has seen films made in a variety of genres, including melodramas, romances, gangster movies, samurai movies, musicals, horror films, and monster films. It has also produced some of the most famous names in the history of cinema: Akira Kurosawa, Hayao Miyazaki, Beat Takeshi, Toshirô Mifune, Godzilla, The Ring, Akira, Rashomon, and Seven Samurai. The Historical Dictionary of Japanese Cinema is an introduction to and overview of the long history of Japanese cinema. It aims to provide an entry point for those with little or no familiarity with the subject, while it is organized so that scholars in the field will also be able to use it to find specific information. This is done through a detailed chronology, an introductory essay, and appendixes of films, film studios, directors, and performers. The cross-referenced dictionary entries cover key films, genres, studios, directors, performers, and other individuals. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Japanese cinema.

Film noir_literally 'black cinema'_is the label customarily given to a group of black and white American films, mostly crime thrillers, made between 1940 and 1959. Today there is considerable dispute about what are the shared features that classify a noir film, and therefore which films should be included in this category. These problems are partly caused because film noir is a retrospective label that was not used in the 1940s or 1950s by the film industry as a production category and therefore its existence and features cannot be established through reference to trade documents. The Historical Dictionary of Film Noir is a comprehensive guide that ranges from 1940 to present day neo-noir. It consists of a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, a filmography, and over 400 cross-referenced dictionary entries on every aspect of film noir and neo-noir, including key films, personnel (actors, cinematographers, composers, directors, producers, set designers, and writers), themes, issues, influences, visual style, cycles of films (e.g. amnesiac noirs), the representation of the city and gender, other forms (comics/graphic novels, television, and videogames), and noir's presence in world cinema. It is an essential reference work for all those interested in this important cultural phenomenon.

Historical Dictionary of Japanese Traditional Theatre is the only dictionary that offers detailed comprehensive coverage of the most important terms, people, and plays in the four principal traditional Japanese theatrical forms—nō, kyōgen, bunraku, and kabuki—supplemented with individual historical essays on each form. This updated edition adds well over 200 plot summaries representing each theatrical form in addition to: a chronology; introductory essay; appendixes; an extensive bibliography; over 1500 cross-referenced entries on important terms; brief biographies of the leading artists and writers; and plot summaries of significant plays. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the Japanese theatre.

Japan is a mix of the old and the new, traditional and modern, and old fashion and innovative. It has traveled the road to a modern destination without totally losing sight of its traditions and values. Although some in Japan lament the passing of old ways, Japan has held on to a reasonable amount of its traditions and values. This is easier to find in its arts and crafts and its literature and films as well as in its social habits. This book will introduce the broad sweep of people, events, and trends, including the successes and failures, of postwar Japan. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Postwar Japan contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 500 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Japan.

Taiwan was able to solidly build and sustain a film industry only after locally-produced Mandarin films secured markets in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia during the 1960s and 1970s. Though only a small island with a limited population, in its heyday, Taiwan was among the top-10 film producing countries/areas in the world, turning out hundreds of martial arts kung fu films and romantic melodramas annually that were screened in theaters across Southeast Asia and other areas internationally. However, except for one acclaimed film by director King Hu, Taiwan cinema was nearly invisible on the art cinema map until the 1980s, when the films of Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang, and other Taiwan New Cinema directors gained recognition at international film festivals, first in Europe, and later, throughout the world. Since then, many other Taiwan directors have also become an important part of cinema history, such as Ang Lee and Tsai Ming-liang. The Historical Dictionary of Taiwan Cinema covers the history of cinema in Taiwan during both the Japanese colonial period (1895-1945) and the Chinese Nationalist period (1945-present). This is accomplished through a chronology highlighting the main events during the long period and an introduction which carefully analyses the progression. The bulk of the information, however, appears in a dictionary section including over a hundred very extensive entries on directors, producers, performers, films, film studios and genres. Photos are also included in the dictionary section. More information can be found through the bibliography. Taiwan cinema is truly unique and this book is a good place to find out more about it, whether you are a student, or teacher, or just a fan.

The crime film genre consists of detective films, gangster films, suspense thrillers, film noir, and caper films and is produced throughout the world. Crime film was there at the birth of cinema, and it has accompanied cinema over more than a century of history, passing from silent films to talkies, from black-and-white to color. The genre includes such classics as The Maltese Falcon, The Godfather, Gaslight, The French Connection, and Serpico, as well as more recent successes like Seven, Drive, and L.A. Confidential. The Historical Dictionary of Crime Films covers the history of this genre through a chronology, an introductory essay, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on key films, directors, performers, and studios. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about crime cinema.

In the years since Georges Méliès’s Le voyage dans la lune (A Trip to the Moon) was released in 1902, more than 1000 science fiction films have been made by filmmakers around the world. The versatility of science fiction cinema has allowed it to expand into a variety of different markets, appealing to age groups from small children to adults. The technical advances in filmmaking technology have enabled a new sophistication in visual effects. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction Cinema contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 400 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, films, companies, techniques, themes, and subgenres. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about science fiction cinema.

A cyborg detective hunts for a malfunctioning sex doll that turns itself into a killing machine. A Heian-era Taoist slays evil spirits with magic spells from yin-yang philosophy. A young mortician carefully prepares bodies for their journey to the afterlife. A teenage girl drinks a cup of life-giving sake, not knowing its irreversible transformative power. These are scenes from the visually enticing, spiritually eclectic media of Japanese movies and anime. The narratives of courageous heroes and heroines and the myths and legends of deities and their abodes are not just recurring motifs of the cinematic fantasy world. They are pop culture’s representations of sacred subtexts in Japan. Japanese Mythology in Film takes a semiotic approach to uncovering such religious and folkloric tropes and subtexts embedded in popular Japanese movies and anime. Part I introduces film semiotics with plain definitions of terminology. Through familiar cinematic examples, it emphasizes the myth-making nature of modern-day film and argues that semiotics can be used as a theoretical tool for reading film. Part II presents case studies of eight popular Japanese films as models of semiotic analysis. While discussing each film’s use of common mythological motifs such as death and rebirth, its case study also unveils more covert cultural signifiers and folktale motifs, including jizo (a savior of sentient beings) and kori (bewitching foxes and raccoon dogs), hidden in the Japanese filmic text.

With the Meiji Restoration in 1868, Japan opened its doors to the West and underwent remarkable changes as it sought to become a modern nation. Accompanying the political changes that Western trade ushered in were widespread social and cultural changes. Newspapers, novels, poems, and plays from the Western world were soon adapted and translated into Japanese. The combination of the rich storytelling tradition of Japan with the realism and modernism of the West produced some of the greatest literature of the modern age. Historical Dictionary of Modern Japanese Literature and Theater, Second Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 500 cross-referenced entries authors, literary and historical developments, trends, genres, and concepts that played a central role in the evolution of modern Japanese literature.