Le Printemps au Japon (1915) Online

The original films, made by Pathé's Japanese subsidiary The Japanese Film, was a fourteen-minute long film (not four minutes as stated here) and was very argely hand-coloured. Since the rather touristy film concentrates on the Japanese flowers, gardens and orchards but is rather well filmed with penty of camera movement and large close-ups of flowers, must have been rather lovely.

The four-minute version (it is in fact more like 3 minutes) is the usual Pathé-Baby cut-down version (reissued in the series L'Enseigment par Pathé-Baby).. A sort of companion film Japon sous la neige was issued in 1916 but was much shorter (about 6 minutes) and in black and white. This too is known in its Pathé-Baby r Pathex version which is about two minutes long.

One is grateful to have the nine-five (it is better than nothing) but sometimes one wishes one had the original film.