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At the same time a series of excellent pictures was produced by men like Minoru Murata, Kiyohiko Ushiwara, Kenji Mizoguchi, Yasujiro Shimazu, Teinosuke Kinugasa. Especially Murata and Kinugasa accomplished some most outstanding pieces of works. “Seisaku no Tsuma” (Seisaku’s Wife, Nikkatsu, 1924), “Machi no Tejinashi” (A Street Juggler, Nikkatsu, 1925), and “Kaijin” (Ashes, Nikkatsu, 1929) by Murata, “Kurutta Ippeiji” (An Insane Page, 1926) and “Jujiro” (Crossroads, 1928) by Kinugasa were all splendid works that represented the positive aspect of the Japanese screen art of that time. The works of these men plainly reflected the influences of European films, but not in the same way as instanced by the photoplay movement of the preceding period championed by men like Osanai, in which it appeared as if their concern was to turn the Japanese screen into a European offshoot by straight imitation. In the works of Murata, Kinugasa and others, Western elements are utilized as fitting and necessary pat¬ tern for giving cinematic expressions to the life and psychology of the Japanese people. It may be recalled, of course, that Japanese life and psychology themselves had been greatly westernized by that time.
We have observed that in the screen art of Japan there have long been two genres— Qendai'geki (contemporary) and Jidai'geki (historical) as the two fundamentally different types. This classification is not based merely on the rather incidental chronologi¬ cal difference in the subject-matter, that is, one dealing with the past and the other the present. It is based on the fact that these two categories are conceived within two entirely opposing systems, have quite different forms of expression, and two distinct psychoideologies. What has been referred to as a kind of international trait of the films of this particular period applies mainly to the Qendai'geki pieces, whereas the Jidai'geki was developing within its peculiarly Japanese pattern. It started from the Kabuki, or more strictly, from a cheap and disreputable imitation of it, and developed as a burlesque Katsii'geki (combat scenes) mainly for the amusement of children. But it was met with great acclamation by the lower stratum of movie fans, and the actors who took the roles of heroes of the Kabuki stage or of “story-books” were greeted with the heartiest of ap¬ plause, among whom Onoye-Matsunosuke became the greatest star of the screen in those early days. The popularity of the Jidai'geki may be compared with that of the American comic “shorts”, “Westerns” and now old-fashioned serials. Its subject was stupid and quite worthless, and yet with the maximum use of the tricks peculiar to the screen, rather childish thrills and speedy tempo, it turned out to be an abnormal but popularly appealing show, thus proving a pioneer of purely cinematic expression by means of extremely simple and incredible resources.
But the low-class historical photoplay gradually improved together with the advance¬ ment of Japanese screen art and the level of movie spectators. The absurd and grotesque
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