This film attempts to reconstruct the tension of the Battle of Shanghai through an episode in an understated way, introducting its story in a documentary mode. In the film story, Japan's marine regiment protects Japanese residents and Chinese refugees-women and young children-from rampant street fighting, Shanhai Rikusentai unsparingly uses its first eight minutes for an official-mannered self-justification of the war. From the viewpoint of explaining Japan's military operation,the narration refers to the city s spatial division in sync with maps on screen.

The Morning Sun Shines is a fiction-documentary film by Kenji Mizoguchi and Seiichi Ina. The film is a combination of a drama about a reporter, and documentary footage about newspaper production. Only 25 minutes of footage has survived.

Jidaigeki from 1940

Propaganda documentary about the fall of Nanking. Considered for a long time as a lost film, it was discovered in Beijing, China, in the year 1995.

The film is about a protest provoked when the university decided to restrict access to sports facilities to athletes, cutting out all other students. This is, strictly speaking, not a Prokino film. It was produced by the Waseda University Film Circle, which was organized by Kawazoe Shiro. Feature film directors Yamamoto Satsuo and Taniguchi Senkichi were apparently students at Waseda at the time and participated in the production.

Documentary of an Imperial Japanese Army regiment's advance from Shanghai to Wuhan in 1938. This film was shelved before submission to Home Ministry censors amid rumors that Fumio was a Communist.

10 minutes 18fps, 35mm, silent, black and white. The film records the members of Studio F enjoying a cherry blossom viewing party, with the smiling faces of Gosho, Naruse Mikio, Fujimoto Masumi, Chiba Sachiko, Shinobu Setsuko, Kobayashi Jyukuji, and Kawakita Sotaro. The original is 8mm. Around 1935.

Public Information short film by Tai Katō

In 1927, meteorologist Masanao Abe (1891-1966) established the Abe Cloud Air Current Research Observatory on the heights of Gotemba in Shizuoka Prefecture. Until 1942, through his contributions to research magazines and publications, he worked on elucidating the formation process of clouds above Mount Fuji. He left a colossal archive representative of modern meteorology, including pictorial records of every kind-- this one an early success, artistically.

A documentary short highlighting the cultural attractions of Ise-Shima National Park in eastern Mie Prefecture, a popular coastal sightseeing destination and home to the Ise Grand Shrine.

This documentary was produced on the request of the Korean railway-organisation during the Japanese occupation of Korea. The news-coverage in those days was aimed at strengthening the public opinion that Korea and Japan were indissolubly allied. This film, as many other films in those days, was meant to clearly propagate this pact. However, the director of this film, Shimizu Hiroshi, only shows streetscenes. He films without the ideology that was so common in this kind of films. He registers the people in the street in their daily occupations.

Excerpts from the 1942 propaganda film Toyo no Gaika celebrate the Japanese occupation of the Philippines during World War II. Named after a Japanese victory song, the film uses the power of the cinematic image for ideological purposes. A parade of visual symbols, emphasizing the patriotism of the victor and the defeat of the enemy, includes portraits of captured American generals and a trampled American flag.

An Ishiro Honda short film.

Tsuburaya served both as director and cinematographer of this feature-length national policy documentary, supported by the naval ministry, which creates a sketch of life among cadets aboard a naval training vessel on a voyage around Indochina, Malaya, Hawaii and the South Pacific islands. The film clearly outlines the economic motives behind Japan’s southward expansion, but also presents the music and dance traditions of various regions, in what has been termed “folklore through sound”.

The film uses the haiku of early 19th century poet Kobayashi Issa as its motif to portray the lives of farmers residing deep in the mountains of Nagano. Commissioned by the Nagano Prefectural Department of Tourism, the movie became instead, in the hands of Kamei, a depiction, sometimes ironic, of poverty and the harsh life of the inhabitants of the area. The short movie is often considered Japan’s first “poetic documentary”.

Documentary recording the devastation of the 1923 Kanto earthquake and subsequent relief efforts and reconstruction. Re-released by the Kanto Earthquake Digital Image Archive in 2021.

Documentary about the Japanese-occupied city that, as described by one contemporary source " boasts international settlements in which the nationals of a number of countries enjoy the privileges of extraterritoriality". Filmed on location in December 1937 Film contrasts the horrors of war with the complex political issues involving the metropolis.

Documentary on the development on trains, with animated sequences.

This was a news film with elements of reenactment. From December 1927 to 1932, 2,000 bus and train drivers were fired, provoking a strike. This film was edited out of footage shot from that strike over a long period.

This film records the Japanese military's efforts to capture the Burma Road,one of the major supply lines to China, from the British beginning in December 1941. The film ends with the fall of Mandalay in May 1942.

Using mostly footage from Nippon News newsreels, this film explains the history of Japanese aggression, from the Manchurian Incident to the Pacific War. The governing classes of Japanese capitalism planned and carried out the war project to acquire foreign markets. and while most people were forced into poverty, the capitalists became rich. The special political police detained Communists and those who opposed the war. With the rise of fascism, Japan’s tragedy begins.

A record of the people and culture of Beijing

The lion dance in traditional Japanese theatre.

Yamamoto Senji fought against the Peace Preservation Law in the Diet. On March 5, 1929 he was assassinated by the right wing. A farewell ceremony was held near the University of Tokyo. Prokino's Tokyo Branch shot the procession.

A documentary on the living practices of farmers in rural japan during the 1940s.

A short documentary on the making of Noburo Ofuji's Katsura-hime.

A main agenda of the prewar farmer's movement was struggle against landowners. Prokino also considered this as their prime concern. The main title sequence and the latter part of the film have unfortunately been lost. While we cannot see its entire structure, we can still get a glimpse of it from this surviving short.

After his Tokyo farewell ceremony, Yamamoto's ashes were sent to Kyoto on March 9. Many friends and citizens gathered at his home in Uji. On the 15th a worker-farmer funeral was held at the Sanjo YMCA. Prokino's Kyoto Branch shot these five days of activities. The long line of cars is filled with taxis, whose drivers deeply admired Yamamoto. The Watanabe in the title refers to the head of the Communist Party of Japan. Watanabe was returning to Japan from Taiwan when he was stopped by authorities. He committed suicide in their custody. Yamamoto and Watanabe were mourned together.

A documentary film about the tidal flat ecosystem directed by ornithologist Shimomura Kenji. It is also said to be the original form of Japanese ecological documentary films. We took two years of long-term photography at Gyotoku Coast in Chiba Prefecture and Ariake Bay in Saga Prefecture, and carefully observed the ecology of tidal flat creatures such as crabs and muddy sparrows using telephoto lenses.

Promotional film for the 50th anniversary of Tokyo Dento showing the power of electricity

Footage shot during Japanese Army Lieutenant Nobu Shirase’s second Antarctica expedition.

This was the only documentary made in the aftermath of the atomic bombings of 1945. Japanese filmmakers entered the two cities intent on making an appeal to the International Red Cross, but were promptly arrested by newly arriving American troops. The Americans and Japanese eventually worked together to produce this film, a science film unemotionally displaying the effects of atomic particles, blast and fire on everything from concrete to human flesh. No other filmmakers were allowed into the cities, and when the film was done the Americans crated everything up and shipped it to an unknown location. That footage is now lost. However, an American and a Japanese filmmaker each stole and hid a copy of the film, fearful that the reality of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be hidden from history. Eventually, these prints surfaced and became our only precious archive of the aftermath of nuclear warfare -- a film that everyone knows in part, yet has rarely seen in its entirety.

In the summer of 1921 (Taisho 10), a major labour dispute broke out at the Kawasaki-Mitsubishi shipyard in Kobe. The Kawasaki-Mitsubishi dispute is said to be the largest labour dispute in the pre-war period, with an unprecedented scale of 30,000 participants. The dispute, which had been fiercely fought for more than 40 days under the scorching sun, ended with the declaration of defeat by the workers. This live-action film, only nine minutes long and silent, provides a glimpse into the grand demonstration on July 10th, when the dispute was at its peak. Filming was done by the Nikkatsu film crew at the request of the Ohara Institute for Social Research.

A documentary film released in 1936

The film recorded kindergarten teacher and children in Japan, 1942.

Independent documentary depicting the farmers’ life of struggle against the snow in Shinjo City, Yamagata.

On May 1st, unions all over Japan celebrate May Day, the international day for workers. Workers gather together at parks and hold demonstrations and parades. May Day has its origins in a strike that occurred in the United States on May 1, 1886, a strike that called for an eight-hour workday. Prokino recorded the May Day every year from 1927 to 1932. Among these films, this work is the only one that has survived. However, only its first part has survived. The original film depicts the march to the Ueno Park where the rally was dismissed. Iwasaki Akira coordinated the entire Tokyo Prokino organization as it photographed the 1931 May Day celebrations. They shot in both 16mm and 35mm (other 35mm productions were planned, but this is the only one that achieved completion). A 16mm print was circulated around the countryside by mobile projection units, and a 35mm print was shown at Soviet film nights in Tokyo and Osaka.

An actuality film showing a Buddhist festival in Kyoto. The procession includes Buddhist monks, geishas, and others dressed coordinately to the Japanese tradition.

This fragmentary documentary was prepared at the request of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences by Yoshio Osawa of the J.O. Studios in Kyoto, Japan, to illustrate current progress in Japanese sound picture technique. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive.

A documentary film by a Japanese crew who traveled to Siam in 1938 to capture footage of the elephant round-up festival in Lopburi Province, as well as scenes of everyday life and cityscapes in Bangkok. The film also includes behind-the-scenes footage from the Sri Krung Sound Film Studio, featuring Manee Sumonnat, one of the first leading actresses of Thai cinema, whose work has otherwise been entirely lost.

A political film written by statesman Shimpei Goto advocating for universal suffrage.

A feature-length wartime documentary compiled by Nihon Eigasha, Malayan War Record: A Record of the Onward March chronicles Japan’s 1941–42 campaign from the Malayan Peninsula to the fall of Singapore. Built from Japanese newsreels and confiscated British material, the film depicts key operations and ceremonies surrounding the British capitulation at the Ford Factory, functioning as morale-boosting propaganda for home and occupied audiences. First part of the two-film Mare Senki series; the companion title is Birth of Syonan-to.

This is a propaganda film that promotes Japan's victory in the Sino-Japanese War in 1937 and orders that Koreans to be ready for battle and armed with the Yamato (Japanese) spirit. Women are exhorted to donate a spoonful of rice each time they cook, while men are advised to quit drinking and smoking and donate the money they save to the war effort. The film illustrates how the Japanese colonial rule gave each person a role, however small, so that everyone could serve in the wartime machine. Acquired in 1993.

Documentary about agar production.

Documentary about Ginza district in Tokyo.

Japanese documentary about the submarine I-10 operating in the Indian Ocean during WWII. The film is shot largely from the prowling submarine.

Late WWII film

In the 1930s, Japan implemented a colonial policy called the “Policy of Sheep for North and Cotton for South.” The policy forced cotton cultivation in the southern region of the Korean Peninsula and sheep raising in the north in order to secure raw materials for its own industry. The film chronicles the process of transporting thousands of sheep on a boat from Australia to the Unggi region (now Seonbong in North Korea), how the sheep adapt after their arrival, and the process of wool production. The narration of the film, which appears as intertitles, is from the sheep's point of view, giving the film a whimsical, children’s-movie-like touch. Although the film hides its purpose of explicit propaganda behind its family-friendly format, it is of great importance; it gives us a glimpse into one aspect of the policy of expropriation of cotton and sheep under the Japanese colonial rule in the 1930s. Acquired in 2010.

Released in September 1942 by Nippon Eigasha, this 55-minute kokusaku (national policy) documentary follows Japanese paratroopers through every stage of their training—from gymnastics and parachute packing to tower drills and their first jumps from aircraft. Produced under the supervision of the Army Aviation Headquarters, the film embodied wartime ideology and propaganda aims. Widely popular at home and in occupied territories, it was accompanied by a theme song that helped brand its soldiers as “saviors from the sky.”

Documentary footage of indigenous Pacific islanders.

The film depicts live action footage of seagulls with a timelapse of an egg hatching.

An ethnographic film about the Shiraoi Ainu

This documentary introduces outsiders to the scenic wonders and peoples of the far-off country. But the film also had a charitable purpose. Although reusing footage from Beautiful Japan—most noticeably the scenes with the Ainu of Hokkaido—it also interjects new material more central to the sponsor, about the role of women in Japan and their special needs. The film is incomplete and it is unclear how much of the film is missing.

A short documentary from the Japanese Imperial Navy about Japanese Fighters in War.

The film begins with a number indicating that the number of volunteers for the army increased sharply from 1938 to 1940 (by 35 times) after the National Mobilization Law was promulgated in 1938. It shows scenes of the volunteers in a boot camp such as close-order drill, bayonet drill, and guerrilla training. The boot-camp scenes reveal the frantic urgency of the wartime system in the early days of the Pacific War that literally 'mobilized' all human and material resources. After the volunteers are summoned to boot camp in the morning, they all pay their respects toward the Japan's Ise Grand Shrine across the sea. It once again reminds us of the sorrow of losing one’s own country to invaders. Acquired in 1994.

The film is a war-propaganda newsreel film produced when Japan’s defeat in the Pacific War was imminent. The film covers the visit to the birthplace of the late Captain Choe Myeong-ha (Takeyama in Japanese), the first Korean-born Air Force officer who was killed in an operation to attack an airfield on Sumatra. It introduces the captain's parents and keepsakes, and follows junior officers undergoing military training at the captain's alma mater. The film also covers the training of young sailors, the process of making pine coal oil using rosin, the achievement of 1.2 billion won of savings, and mining ore for military supplies. Acquired in 1994.

This documentary film was produced by the Japanese Government-General of Joseon to introduce Joseon's ondol (a traditional Korean sub-floor heating system) and winter culture to Japan. The film takes a close look at the heating mechanism of the ondol, the installation process, how Koreans get through the winter in a house equipped with ondol, children's various winter games, and a visit to a kitchen, where 'gourd dippers' (unfamiliar to Japanese people) are shown and Korean names for things, such as ‘food blade' for a kitchen knife, are described. This film’s tone resembles an anthropological report. The ending is also impressive. The film beautifully utilizes the sound of fulling cloth resonating quietly on a winter night. Collected in 2020, and transferred in 4K resolution.

Documents the most important ceremony of the Ainu people of northern Japan. For both the Ainu – and the peoples of the Amur river area on the mainland – the bear is an important spirit ancestor, and the annual ceremonial year used to revolve around ceremonies of the bear cult, where a bear is ritually killed and its spirit honoured. Also documented are aspects of Ainu daily life in the 1930s: houses, boats, ornate swords, religious artifacts, and the elaborately tattooed mouths of the older women. There are two shortened versions (28 and later 25 minutes) of this documentary edited in the 1960s. Although shorter, these versions include some new images that Munro had not sent to England.

Considered to be the father of modern karate and the originator of the shotokan style, Sensei Gichin Funakoshi is captured on this remarkable documentary film demonstrating the Tekki 1, 2 & 3 katas and the meykyo kata shot c. 1924. Shot on location at Keio University in Tokyo, Japan at the Keio Karatebu (Karate club of Keio) which was the first University to adopt Karate into it's physical education curriculum. In addition to Sensei Funakoshi, there is lots of other footage covering the training of the University students and summer training camps (Shochu keiko) at the beach. (Ryukyu)

Benjamin Brodsky takes a 5800 mile trip through Japan in 1918, filming people and places.