100th Anniversary Fuji-Kan Theater

Sign Unveiling and Presentation by Dr. Daisuke Miyao, UCSD

Presented by the Little Tokyo Historical Society

October 30, 2025

10:00 am: 324 E. 1st St. - Sign Unveiling

11:00 am: JANM Democracy Lab - Presentation

11:45 am to 1:00 am: Light Lunch and Conversation

In 1924, Yasuasaburo Fujimoto and Katsugoro Kawase secured investments from shop owners in Little Tokyo and subsequently established a movie theater, “Fuji-kan, (Fuji-kwan) to show American silent movie films. It opened on October 20, 1925 at 324 E. 1st Street (south side of 1st, east of San Pedro Street).  An article in the Rafu Shimpo, a Japanese Language Newspaper, called it “the one and only entertainment venue” in Little Tokyo.

On February 15, 1926, the theater had a “reopening” and screened “Konjiki Yasha/The Golden Demon” a Japanese silent film starring Tsuzuya Moroguchi and Yoshiko Kawada, produced by Shochiku (1922). This is believed to be the first time that a Japanese silent film was shown in Los Angeles. Admission was 50 cents.  An on site Narrator (benshi), named Tochuken Namiemon, was often employed to provide a dramatic insight into what was happening on screen. Japanese films continued to be show at the Fuji-kan, until 1941.

Sessue Hayakawa, a Japanese actor, rose to prominence in the silent movie era in the 1910s and 1920s. Hayakawa was the first actor of Asian descent to achieve  film stardom as a leading man in America and Europe. He got his start on the theater stage in Little Tokyo in a play called “The Typhoon,” was hired by producer, Thomas Ince, to star in a silent movie version with the same title, then was signed by Famous Players-Lasky to star in “The Cheat“ directed by Cecil B. DeMille. He went on to receive an Academy Award Nomination for acting in “The Bridge on the River Kwai.” Many silent and sound films starring Hayakawa would be shown at the Fuji-kan Theater.

Executive Order 9066, issued on February 19, 1942, resulted in the forced removal of the entire West Coast Japanese population, many of them American Citizens, to concentration camps, turning the thriving Little Tokyo community into a shuttered ghost town. TheFuji-kan theatre closed and the owner was falsely arrested in January 1942 for spreading propaganda. During the war the neighborhood, then known as Bronzeville, became predominately African-American.

Fuji-kan reopened as the Linda Lea Theatre in 1945, featuring movies and live acts catering to the largely African-American population which had filled the apartments and houses vacated by the interned Japanese Americans. After the end of the war, the Japanese population slowly moved back, African Americans moved to other areas of LA, and the community became known once again, as Little Tokyo.

In April 1955 this theatre on E. 1st was re-acquired by the Nichibei Kinema Company, President Shunsuke Kumamoto. It was renamed the Kinema and reopened August 13, 1955. The Kinema was was running as late as 1963. The operators were evicted when the property was acquired by the City of Los Angeles for redevelopment. The Kinema (formerly Fuji- Kan) was demolished by 1964.

Motion by LA City Council:

Be it moved that  324 E. 1st Street be recognized as the site of an important Japanese owned and run, movie theater in Little Tokyo, the Fuji-kan, during the 1920s until the 1960s, and that the Department of Transportation will be directed to fabricate and install a permanent ceremonial sign to this effect at this location.

Thanks to the following organizations for their financial and in-kind sponsorship:

Aratani Care Foundation, Arts District/Little Tokyo NC 13 Grant, Japanese

American National Museum, CD 13 Councilwoman Ysabel Jurado, City of LA

Department of Pubic Works, Deputy Consul General Naoko Kamitani, Japan