Abe Yoshishinge, 50,000 old films, Arirang — any news?

[Jun-Dai]

This piece of news was posted in the Naruse thread back in 2005, and I ran into it in a few other places around that time, but I haven't heard anything since. Has anyone heard about any updates or even a listing of what films are supposedly in this collection of 50,000 films?

The death of a Japanese film collector could yield vital clues to the whereabouts of a surviving copy of director Na Un-gyu's classic 1926 film "Arirang", believed lost in the Korean War.

Abe Yoshishige, 81, died Wednesday at a hospital in Osaka, Japan. Beginning from the time his father was a police officer in colonial Korea, Abe had been an avid collector of films from the periods before and after the Pacific War, becoming almost legendary in Japan.

Before he died Abe, who had collected about 50,000 films, claimed to have a copy of the silent movie. This has never been confirmed, but he did show documentary director Chung Su-ung and a reporter from Japan's Mainichi Shimbun a list of the films in his possession.

[Michael Kerpan]

Last I heard was that it was looking more and more likely that nothing of any real value was going to turn up.

[myrnaloyisdope]

I've got my fingers crossed for Convention City.

[aox]

3 years and 50,000 films; is that enough time to confirm anything one way or the other? And would all of this be Asian films, or could lost western films also pop up?

[Michael Kerpan]

My recollection is that what has been found has mostly been pretty useless. I am trying to find out if there is anything newer (and more hopeful) to report.

[futilitarian]

Cinema Lost and Found 2008 at the National Film Center in Tokyo devoted a few days to showing films from Yoshishige Abe's collection.

Here are links to the Google translated pages of what was shown:

Colletion 1
Colletion 2
Colletion 3 Sounds like what was shown this day is one of the more complete/longest movies found in the collection.

Don't know if there is anything of real consequence in there. A lot is lost with the computer trying to translate too. You know something is wrong when you are asked to make sense of the quote, "with the meat surface." Hopefully someone here can draw some good information out of it, or the original Japanese pages.

Here is the listing for the entire 2008 program

[Sanjuro]

Just to check, when you say 'useless' do you mean films which already exist in prints elsewhere, or just films which don't have any historical 'importance'?

If it's 50,000 previously lost records of pre-war Japan I think 'useless' is a bit harsh. I mean, isn't something like 90% of all Japan's pre-war output considered lost?

[Michael Kerpan]

According to Prof. Adam Gerow (over on the KineJapan mailing list):

It has been known for some time that the Abe Yoshishige collection did not have the tremendous treasures the collector said it did. The National Film Center eventually accepted 75 of the films into their collection in 2006 and showed some of the 8 most important of them earlier this year. None are by really famous directors, although the feature length film on Shinran, starring Egawa Ureo (this is the longest film in the collection) is a curiosity, since, because it is lacking beginning and end credits, it is still not certain when it was made and by whom.