Manchuria Film Association

Manchukuo Film Association Ltd. (満洲映画協会, Manshu Eiga Kyokai, or 満映 (Man'ei)^?) (Chinese: 株式會社滿洲映畫協會), also known as the "Manchuria Film Production", was a Japanese film production company in Manchukuo in the 1930s and 1940s.

The Manchukuo Film Association was established on August 14, 1937, as a national policy company (国策会社) a fifty-fifty joint venture between the government of Manchukuo and the South Manchurian Railway Company. The original studios were located at a former woollen goods factory, with the offices at the former Jilin Architectural Institute (吉林省建築設計院) in Jilin Province. Unlike Japan's overtly "colonial" film markets in Taiwan and Korea, the Manchukuo Film Association was from the first promoted by the Japanese as being a Japanese-run Chinese film studio. Man'ei grew out of the Southern Manchurian Railway's Photographic Division which was initially charged with producing industrial and educational films about Manchukuo to educate Japanese audiences. Negishi Kan'ichi was recruited from his post as Head of Nikkatu's Tamagawa Studios to come to Man'ei to rationalize feature film production there. Promotional materials from the Studios boasted that Man'ei had the most state-of-the art facilities in all of Asia at that time.

Nobusuke Kishi, one of the top officials involved in the industrial development of Manchukuo, enlisted Masahiko Amakasu, head of Manchukuo's Ministry of Civil Affairs, to manage the operation in 1939 replacing Negishi. Amakasu threw himself wholeheartedly into his appointment effectively using his status as a film industry outsider as well as his notoriety as the murderer of Osugi Sakae and family to maintain Man'ei's independence from the Japanese film industry. Amakasu was frequently critical and sometimes hostile to Japanese criticism of Man'ei. As a result of a 1936 tour of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, Amakasu was able to see the great European studios of Germany's Universum Film AG and Italy's Cinecittà first hand. After taking up his post at Man'ei Amakasu was determined to rationalize the studio's production system after UFA to compete with both Hollywood and the Japanese film industry. This included using agents of the Towa Company to assist him in procuring the latest German movie cameras and production techniques. Amakasu also hosted notables from the Japanese film industry including movie stars, directors, and conductors (such as Takashi Asahina). Perhaps what was most unique about Amakasu's Man'ei was its staff. Although Amakasu was considered Right-wing, he was unusually broadminded in hiring many left-wing and Communist sympathizers at a time when they were being purged from the Japanese film industry. In this sense, Man'ei resembled Hollywood, UFA, Cinecittà, and Shanghai as a cosmopolitan film center bringing together film personnel from a variety of ethnicities and political persuasions.

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