The motion picture Hua Mu Lan (1939) was made in the foreign concessions in Shanghai, the so-called “isolate island,” in the period after the Second Shanghai Incident. This paper is an investigation into the circumstances of the production and distribution of Hua Mu Lan, especially how it was explained in different places. Hua Mu Lan was screened in Shanghai, Chongqing and Japan during the Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War, and the reactions that it fostered in those times and places were not all the same. It could be called an anti-Japanese picture in some cases or a pro-Japanese or a “Greater East Asian” picture in others. This paper will reveal and interrelate historical facts, the materials recording the history of this movie, and the opinions offered about it in those days.

After confirming these historical facts, this paper will discuss from the viewpoints of ethnicity and gender how Mu Lan, the legendary heroine, was imagined yet her color totally changed, and how Mu Lan was made to be the representative of peoples of belligerent countries. This paper will also discuss how Hua Mu Lan crossed borders and was accepted by Japanese.

This paper aims not only to talk about a motion picture standing right on the crossroads of the historical time and space, but also use it to analyze in detail the situation in the “isolated islands” and the movie world in Chongqing, as well as the actual circumstances of Chinese film production in the Kokusaku Eiga Company. What is important is to emphasize the necessity of examining the connections between wartime movies in the context of war, and to build up one part of the history of cinematic exchange between China and Japan.