Li Xianglan
Star of Wartime Propaganda Films
Japanese Rule
1920–2014
Li Xianglan, whose real name was Yamaguchi Yoshiko (1920–2014), was born into a Japanese family in northeastern China and became a wartime film superstar spanning China, Japan and Manchukuo, as well as an important instrument of the Japanese empire's cultural propaganda. Raised in China from childhood and fluent in Chinese, she was recruited by the Manchukuo Film Association (Man'ei) and was built up under the name 'Li Xianglan' into a hugely popular singing-and-acting star who appeared to be Chinese, starring in many state-policy films that beautified Japanese aggression and promoted 'Japan–Manchukuo friendship,' becoming famous across East Asia. In 1943 she starred in The Bell of Sayun, a Man'ei–Shochiku co-production based on the story of the Atayal girl Sayun of Taiwan, which embellished what had been a simple mountain accident into a moving legend of a 'patriotic maiden' devoting herself to the nation, making the film a representative work of Taiwan's wartime mobilization and imperialization propaganda, while her sweet image and singing made the propaganda all the more affecting. After the war, because of her Chinese persona as 'Li Xianglan' she was for a time tried as a collaborator, but was finally released and repatriated to Japan upon proof of her Japanese citizenship, resuming her real name, Yamaguchi Yoshiko. She later remade herself as an actress and presenter and went on to enter politics, winning election to the Japanese House of Councillors and devoting many years to questions of war responsibility and peace. The life of Li Xianglan and The Bell of Sayun vividly bear witness to how film and stars were swept into wartime mobilization and made part of the empire's propaganda machine.
1943 Starred in the propaganda film The Bell of Sayun
1945 Tried after the war, then repatriated to Japan and resumed her real name
Star of Wartime Propaganda Films
Li Xianglan
Era
Japanese Rule
Lifespan
1920–2014
Li Xianglan, whose real name was Yamaguchi Yoshiko (1920–2014), was born into a Japanese family in northeastern China and became a wartime film superstar spanning China, Japan and Manchukuo, as well as an important instrument of the Japanese empire's cultural propaganda. Raised in China from childhood and fluent in Chinese, she was recruited by the Manchukuo Film Association (Man'ei) and was built up under the name 'Li Xianglan' into a hugely popular singing-and-acting star who appeared to be Chinese, starring in many state-policy films that beautified Japanese aggression and promoted 'Japan–Manchukuo friendship,' becoming famous across East Asia. In 1943 she starred in The Bell of Sayun, a Man'ei–Shochiku co-production based on the story of the Atayal girl Sayun of Taiwan, which embellished what had been a simple mountain accident into a moving legend of a 'patriotic maiden' devoting herself to the nation, making the film a representative work of Taiwan's wartime mobilization and imperialization propaganda, while her sweet image and singing made the propaganda all the more affecting. After the war, because of her Chinese persona as 'Li Xianglan' she was for a time tried as a collaborator, but was finally released and repatriated to Japan upon proof of her Japanese citizenship, resuming her real name, Yamaguchi Yoshiko. She later remade herself as an actress and presenter and went on to enter politics, winning election to the Japanese House of Councillors and devoting many years to questions of war responsibility and peace. The life of Li Xianglan and The Bell of Sayun vividly bear witness to how film and stars were swept into wartime mobilization and made part of the empire's propaganda machine.
1943 Starred in the propaganda film The Bell of Sayun
1945 Tried after the war, then repatriated to Japan and resumed her real name