🎞 Asian cinema; Japanese film 🇯🇵
Coup d'État
When I saw Yoshishige Yoshida's (1933-2022) Coup d'état (Kaigenrei, 1973) for the first time in my life as a child via a satellite television broadcast, I couldn’t understand what it was about. Today, as a permanent resident of Hong Kong, especially after the 2019 incident, it’s easy to grasp the point of the film. The core thought of this film is the accountability of an ideologist during a social uprising. I believe it’s also easy to understand for Hong Kong citizens.
The protagonist, Ikki Kita (1883-1937), was and still is the greatest intellectual, a revolutionary philosopher of Japan. He’s brilliantly played by the veteran actor, one of my favorites in cinema, Rentarō Mikuni (1923-2013). As a result, I can’t imagine any other replacement in the field of acting for Mikuni, for Kita’s solemnness and agony of bearing a revolution. In this film, Kita’s key line is that he thinks the most important thing for a revolutionary is not to bring about a revolution, but to be capable of bearing it. I agree with him.
The Coup d'état (Kaigenrei, 1973) style resembles the Polish film, Mother Joan of the Angels (1961), and Citizen Kane (1941), especially because of its defamiliarizing angles and pan-focused deep framing that maximizes perspective within a shot. This is what I prefer in the cinema. There is nothing to add in terms of techniques, while my concern is the futile content itself. In the narrative aspect, it develops dialectic loops: one is the indirect linkage to the 1921 Zenjiro Yasuda (the founder of the current Mizuho Financial Group; 1838-1921) assassination by Heigo Asahi (1890-1921); the second loop is a failure to bomb the Tama power station by Young Soldier (played by Yasuo Miyake); the third loop is the February 26 Incident. These are accompanied by Kita’s reactions to depict his characteristics. Finally, he proves himself accountable to his influence.
Kita is the author of An Outline Plan for the Reorganization of Japan (1919), which became the origin of the manifesto of the Kodo-ha (the Imperial Way faction in the Imperial Japanese Army/IJA), and a civilian society, the Kokutai Genri-ha (the National Principle faction), is seen as a key or central ideologist. The latter was run by Kita’s disciple, Mitsugi (Zei) Nishida (played by Tadahiko Sugano). This film doesn’t explain factionalism in the IJA at that time: the division between the Kodo-ha (it tended to restore the absolute monarchy; the Imperial Way faction in the Imperial Japanese Army/IJA) and the Tosei-ha (it tended to gain and expand the supreme command of the Emperor as his bureaucratic arm; the Control faction; Hideki Tojo was in this faction that later launched the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War). The difference is not absolute and exchangeable for Hirohito, who officially held the Theory of the Emperor as an Organ of Government (Tennou Kikan-Setsu) while he had the absolute power to order the suppression of the rebels in the February 26 Incident. Several things must be pointed out here:
1. This film is about Kita’s psychology, accountability, and the unbearable burden of being an ideologist of an uprising. Thus, it doesn’t explain the background and the historical context in general. The February 26 Incident is segmented and partially implied as A City of Sadness (1989).
2. Kita was and still is wrongly labeled as a ‘fascist,’ while his An Outline Plan for the Reorganization of Japan (1919) has three socialist principles—capped private property, private lands, and private companies—which are far more considerate of the peasants and workers at that time, who were agonizing under monopolies than any ‘leftists.’ The key factor is that Kita promoted universal suffrage, believed to be a democratic solution to end monopoly in politics. Moreover, the young rebel officials of the February 26 Incident were from the social classes of the rural areas. However, it’s uncertain that the success of the February 26 Incident could have implemented the Kita programs as depicted in An Outline Plan for the Reorganization of Japan (1919), while the rebel statement only sought the elimination of the vested interests that alienated the emperor from his people and collapsed society. In other words, it only states the establishment of the Kodo-ha military government. Any other things are up to the will of Hirohito. This is also their naïveté and fatality lying underneath their patriotic passion and pure revolutionary spirit of that time under the social structure of Japan in the 1930s. Their subjectivist adventurism was dependent on the will of Hirohito because the emperor had sovereignty over Japan, not the people. As we know, Hirohito strongly refused the Kodo-ha revolution, the so-called Showa Restoration, and directly ordered it to be suppressed. I can replace Hirohito with CCP for Hong Kong here. If some people take the same path as the February 26 Incident in the present peacetime, the CCP will suppress it the same way as Hirohito, even if they are more patriotic and genuinely loyal to the supreme authority. This is an important lesson in world history in similar situations governed by the same historical laws that occur in other countries. On the contrary, any military solution to end vested interests needs a supreme order of the sovereign authority. In this case, the February 26 Incident could have been successful only if Hirohito issued an imperial order to back the rebels, not suppress them. Hong Kong must have a supreme order from the CCP to militarily or violently end the vested interests of the HKSARG in a case of treason. I support this military option by the PLA in case of such an emergency in Hong Kong without hesitation.
3. Letter of Intent to Rise to the Resistance (The February 26 Incident)
(February 26, 1936)
We, the undersigned, respectfully submit that the reason we are a nation is because of our national polity, which has been created and nurtured in unison under the rule of His Majesty the Emperor, the Emperor of Japan, who is the greatest leader of all generations. The dignity and integrity of this national polity have been established since the founding of the nation by Jinbu, the first Emperor of Japan, and the Meiji Restoration, and it is now in the autumn of this year that we should make progress in opening the nation to all nations.
However, since that time, a group of dissolute and vicious people has emerged, arbitrarily indulging their selfishness and self-interests, degrading respect for the supreme and absolute dignity of the nation, and working with the presumption to prevent the creation and development of all people, causing them to groan in mortal pain and suffering. The so-called “senior political leaders,” “overlords,” military cliques, financial cliques, bureaucrats, political parties, etc., are the culprits behind the destruction of the nation.
The London Naval Treaty and the removal of the Superintendent of Education in the March Incident were attempts to dry up the authority of the Commander-in-Chief and to steal the authority of the Emperor and were the most prominent examples of such intrigue. Nakaoka, Sagoya, and the pioneers of the League of Blood, the uprising of the May 15 incident, and the spark of Lieutenant Colonel Aizawa are indeed not without cause, and yet they have shed blood on many occasions without the slightest repentance or remorse, and they continue to live by their self-interests and to make their lives a matter of slight and easy. It is clear to us from the very first glance that a single touch of the sword between Russia, China, Great Britain, and the United States would bring ruin to this sacred land, which is the legacy of the founder of our nation. This is a truly grave crisis, both at home and abroad. We must cut away the treacherous vassals who are destroying the nation, who block the power of the ridge and prevent a new revolution.
As if the order to mobilize the First Division was done, our comrades in the Imperial Guard, who have pledged themselves to the support of the Restoration since long ago and who have died as martyrs in the line of duty, will be on their way to conquering the world, and yet they will not be able to stop themselves from being concerned about the situation within their own country. We must eliminate the treacherous vassals and military bandits on your side and crush the heart of their government.
If we do not now fulfill the absolute path of being your servants and elders, we will be doomed to destruction and ruin. This time, we must unite with our comrades in the spirit of mutual concern and resolve to destroy these wicked criminals, correct the cause, and protect and manifest the national spirit so that we can offer up the blessings of the baby of Shinshu.
May the spirits of the ancestors of the Emperor and the Imperial Sovereign, I beseech you, look down upon us and grant us peace.
February 26, 1936
Lieutenant Nonaka Shiro, Army Infantry Captain, and all comrades
A film or any fiction can only be flat and artificial in contrast to a dynamically multidimensional reality. For people who regularly analyze real events, this is true. And it doesn’t reduce the intrinsic nature of art as being flat.
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