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Film Notes:
PICTURE
BRIDE
PICTURE BRIDE (USA 1995, 95 mins)
Director: Kayo Hatta; screenwriter: Kayo Hatta and Mari Hatta; producer:
Lisa Onodera and Diane Mei Lin Mark, Miramax Films in association
with Thousand Cranes Productions; costume design: Ada Akaji; production
design: Paul Guncheon; editor: Lynzee Klingman and Mallory Gottlieb;
music: Mark Adler; cinematographer: Claudio Rocha. CAST: Youki Kudoh
(Riyo), Tamlyn Tomita (Kana), Akira Takayama (Matsuji Kimura), Cary-Hiroyuki
Tagawa, with special appearance by Toshiro Mifune.
Discussion questions for journal entries and class:
1. Employing the historical/sociological material you have read
on Japanese (American) family structure, the history of Japanese
immigration and the custom of "picture bride" marriages, comment
on the representation of gender relationships in Kayo Hatta's PICTURE
BRIDE? Specifically, how are the relationships between Japanese
immigrant men and women on the Hawai'ian sugar plantations portrayed?
To what degree do traditional Japanese cultural expectations determine
the relationship between Riyo and her husband, Matsuji, and what
kinds of changes does it undergo in the course of the film?
2. Decribe the relationships between the women and their importance
in the film, specifically between Riyo and Kana? Analyze the scene
that shows Riyo running away to the beach and meeting Kana one last
time as a "ghost" or in her imagination? What does Kana represent?
3. PICTURE BRIDE focuses almost exclusively on the Japanese immigrant
community in Hawai'i in 1918. Discuss the film's portrayal of what
happens to a traditional culture that has been dislocated or transplanted
to a new place. How does this dislocation affect individual immigrants'
responses to oppression and exploitation in the new country?
4. In addition to the prominent treatment of Japanese women immigrants'
experiences, the film also comments on class relationships in a
new social and cultural context. Riyo comes from urban Yokohama,
Japan and is transplanted to the primitive conditions of the plantation
and the grim prospect of an arranged marriage in Hawai'i. Discuss
the film's identification with and critique of the central female
sojourner in the context of class relations in the new environment.
Additional Web Resources:
For additional resources on the making of this film, Japanese sojourners
in Hawaii (1885-1920), sugarcane plantations in the 1800s, early
Japanese immigrant clothing, and a bibliography of further references,
check out this companion website for Picture Bride:
http://www.naatanet.org/picturebride/
The Media Resource Center at the University of California at Berkeley
has an informative bibliography on Asian/Asian Americans in Film
and Television:
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/imagesasiansbib.html
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