Among Japanophiles, Donald Richie doesn't need an introduction, having written over 40 books on Japan, including the definitive works on directors Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu, and the first-ever in-depth consideration of Japanese cinema, "The Japanese Film: Art and Industry" (cowritten with Joseph L. Anderson). As director and screenwriter Paul Schrader states in the foreword to "A Hundred Years of Japanese Film," "Whatever we in the West know about Japanese film, and how we know it, we most likely owe to Donald Richie."
But more than merely a historian of Japanese cinema's golden age, Richie is an active critic who continues to observe its contemporary evolution. The first edition of "A Hundred Years of Japanese Film," published in 2001, has been revised and updated to include recent movie trends, such as the horror revival, as well as introduce the latest related directors.
The book charts chronologically the development of Japanese film beginning with the early silents, which were largely stage productions captured on film. It covers periods of heavy foreign influence, particularly expressionism; the strict government control and censorship of the industry during World War II; continuing censorship in postwar Japan at the hands of the occupation forces under Gen. Douglas MacArthur; and the artistic blossoming of film through the next few decades. It ends with the contemporary era.