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This introduction to a special issue entitled  "Decentering Theory: Reconsidering the History of Japanese Film Theory" considers the problems in how film theory has been conceived, and the potentials and problems in examining the rich history of Japanese film theory. I call the "theory complex" a constellation of complexities in which not only foreign but also Japanese scholars ignore Japanese film theory, and in which Japanese thinkers experience a difficulty in terming their work theory.

Japan has done marvelous things with cinema, giving the world the likes of Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, and Ozu. But cinema did not arrive in Japan fully formed at the end of the nineteenth century, nor was it simply adopted into an ages-old culture. Aaron Gerow explores the processes by which film was defined, transformed, and adapted during its first three decades in Japan. He focuses in particular on how one trend in criticism, the Pure Film Movement, changed not only the way films were made, but also how they were conceived. Looking closely at the work of critics, theorists, intellectuals, benshi …