The aim of this thesis is to reappraise the effects of the Cold War on Japanese cinema from the immediate postwar period until the start of Japan's economic boom in the 1960s. Studies of Japanese films from this period have typically analysed the 'textual' effects of the Cold War realignment with America, patiicularly in regard to Japanese cinema's assimilation of 'humanist' values during the Occupation period. Whilst an attention to 'representational politics' remains important, my argument is that in the context of the Cold War, an analysis of the discourses and practices peliaining to 'film trade' is an equally essential framework with which to examine how co-productions, international film distribution and the Japanese film quota and remission system were all framed by power relations between Japan and America. On the one hand, despite the rhetoric of Cold War friendship offered by the MP AAlMPEA (Motion Picture Association of America/Motion Picture Export Association) it was evident that the Hollywood majors were able to exploit the relation to Japan for their own ends. This was apparent both in their handling of Japanese films overseas and in the increasing success of Hollywood films imported into Japan. Rather than this simply being an issue for the commercial sector, however, the inequality ofthis trade relationship also raises critical questions about government attitudes to film. Here the ferocity with which the MP AA attempted to circumvent Japan's film quota and remission system, often adopting threatening tactics, may seem surprising in the context of America's wider trade policies with Japan. Here Japan received 'free trade' access to American markets whilst Washington still permitted Tokyo to maintain many of its trade barriers as a means to secure Japan's Cold War allegiance. The different attitude towards' film trade is particulat)y revealing given the support for the MP AA offered by. Washington, most notably in connection with chairman Eric Johnston's argument that Hollywood cinema was an important form of what today would be called American 'soft power