In film, as in life, China and Japan have a complex love-hate relationship. The negative aspects, especially during the second world war, have been a staple of Hong Kong and mainland cinema for more than 50 years.
However, a far more glamorous and upbeat side has emerged in the many co-productions uniting studios of both nations in the years since 1945.
The earliest large-scale collaborations took place not in the two Chinese-language movie hubs of Shanghai and Hong Kong, but in Hsinking (later renamed Changchun), the capital of Japanese-controlled Manchuria.
The Manchukuo Film Association ('Man-ying' in Chinese and 'Man-ei' in Japanese) was the puppet government's official studio, staffed principally with Japanese technicians, directors, and scriptwriters.
Between 1938 and 1945, Man-ei produced more than 120 dramatic features with both Chinese and Japanese dialogue. Its only genuine, homegrown superstar was Li Xianglan, a singer/actress whose Japanese identity was kept secret until after the war when she resumed her career back in Tokyo under her original name of Yoshiko Yamaguchi.
Meanwhile, in Japanese-occupied Shanghai, the film industry for the most part steered clear of any overt manifestation of the invaders' influence. A controversial exception was Regret on the Spring River (1944), a co-production between Shanghai and Tokyo studios that told of Japanese support for anti-Qing patriots during the 19th-century Taiping Rebellion. Co-starring screen queen Li Lihua and samurai idol Tsumasaburo Bando, the movie was condemned as collaborationist by the post-war Chinese government.