Rare Japanese movie prints at risk of destruction

Tokyo Laboratory forced to scrap up to 20,000 films due to quirk of copyright law

Yasujiro Ozu's 1953 masterpiece "Tokyo Monogatari" ("Tokyo Story") endures today as one of Japan's best-known classic films, though other films by Ozu and other noted directors have been lost to war and natural disasters. Now many thousands more are at risk due to Japan's strict copyright law. © Getty Images

MARK SCHILLING, Contributing writer

October 26, 2023 08:00 JST

TOKYO -- The Japanese film industry has produced many internationally celebrated filmmakers over the decades, from Yasujiro Ozu and Kenji Mizoguchi to Hirokazu Kore-eda and Ryusuke Hamaguchi. But it has a mixed track record for film preservation.

Of approximately 7,000 films made in Japan during the silent era, which extended into the 1930s due to the slow adoption of sound equipment, only about 70 are known to survive in complete form. The lost films include some by Ozu, Mizoguchi and other master directors. Tokyo's Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 destroyed many prints; Allied bombing in World War II even more.