was a Japanese

film studio A film studio (also known as movie studio or simply studio) is a major entertainment company or motion picture company that has its own privately owned studio facility or facilities that are used to make films, which is handled by the production ...

active in the early years of cinema in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

Background

M. Pathe was founded in 1906 by Shōkichi Umeya, a businessman who had distributed films first in

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

and

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

and then in Japan. He took the name "M. Pathe" from the French

Pathé Frères Pathé or Pathé Frères (, styled as PATHÉ!) is the name of various French businesses that were founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France starting in 1896. In the early 1900s, Pathé became the world's largest film equipme ...

studio even though his company had no official connection with that. Umeya built a studio in Ōkubo near

Shinjuku, Tokyo is a special ward in Tokyo, Japan. It is a major commercial and administrative centre, housing the northern half of the busiest railway station in the world ( Shinjuku Station) and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, the administration ...

, and released films such as ones featuring the girls

Kabuki is a classical form of Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for its heavily-stylised performances, the often-glamorous costumes worn by performers, and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers. Kabuki is thought to ...

of Nakamura Kasen. An ambitious man, Umeya sent cameramen to

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...

to record

Nobu Shirase was a Japanese army officer and explorer. He led the first Japanese Antarctic Expedition, 1910–12, which reached a southern latitude of 80°5′, and made the first landing on the coast of King Edward VII Land. Shirase had harboured polar am ...

's expedition, and thus create one of Japan's first feature-length documentaries. He put on a high-class show, with pretty usherettes and high ticket prices, while also using his money to help fund

Sun Yat-sen Sun Yat-sen (; also known by several other names; 12 November 1866 – 12 March 1925)Singtao daily. Saturday edition. 23 October 2010. section A18. Sun Yat-sen Xinhai revolution 100th anniversary edition . was a Chinese politician who serve ...

and the Chinese Revolution.

Merger

It was under Umeya's instigation that

Yoshizawa Shōten was a film studio and importer active in the early years of cinema in Japan. Originally involved in the magic lantern business, Yoshizawa bought a cinématographe camera off a visiting Italian and began exhibiting motion pictures in 1897. Run by ...

Yokota Shōkai was a Japanese film studio active in the early years of cinema in Japan. Its origins can be traced back to when Einosuke Yokota received one of the first Lumiere cinematograph machines in Japan from Inabata Katsutarō to conduct traveling ex ...

, and

Fukuhōdō was a Japanese film studio active in the early years of cinema in Japan. Background Fukuhōdō was founded in 1910 when Kenzō Tabata built a chain of modern, concrete movie theaters in Tokyo. To supply these eight theaters, Tabata started a p ...

merged with M. Pathe to form

Nikkatsu is a Japanese entertainment company known for its film and television productions. It is Japan's oldest major movie studio, founded in 1912 during the silent film era. The name ''Nikkatsu'' amalgamates the words Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literally ...

in 1912. His plan was to sever himself from M. Pathe's difficult financial straits by creating a

trust Trust often refers to: * Trust (social science), confidence in or dependence on a person or quality It may also refer to: Business and law * Trust law, a body of law under which one person holds property for the benefit of another * Trust (bus ...

that emulated the

Motion Picture Patents Company The Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC, also known as the Edison Trust), founded in December 1908 and terminated seven years later in 1915 after conflicts within the industry, was a trust of all the major US film companies and local foreign-bran ...

References

Japanese film studios {{film-studio-stub