Memoirs of a Geisha Review

Peter, thanks for the thoughtful review. I'm glad I skipped this one! I heard somewhere that this film (through music and performance direction and whatnot) stereotypically presents the Asain culture as "oh-so-mysterious" for our western sensibilities, a comment that is certainly in keeping wioth your observation of borderline racism.

I dug "Chicago", but never could muster up any real interest for this. Hopefully it's just a sophomore slump for Marshall.

Movies based on books are rarily any good. I read Le Comte de Monte-Cristo when I was 14. I have never seen a movie that was even close to doing the book justice, and I've seen a lot of the failures produced over the years.

I think we're seeing the same thing here. You should definitely read the book as the fact you mention Sayuri's infatuation with the President as disturbing is proof to me you never got around to it ;)

Azek -- no, I haven't read the book yet, but it seemed likely that it had much more context and detail than the film version.

So the book is much more detail than the movie!? suprise! suprise? I always thought thats a given.

I'm sorry, movies based on books are rarely ever good? Huh?? How bout The Godfather, American Psycho, Fight Club, Jurassic Park, Scarface, The Untouchables, The Green Mile, Donnie Brasco? And those are just the ones off the top of my head. There's literally HUNDREDS more. A lot of movies based on books are BETTER than the book. More than half of Hollywood movies are based on books so to say that there's "rarely" any good ones is a little extreme.

Rocket Punch - To clarify my comment, it's not a given that the book will have more of the detail needed to make the actions of the characters understandable and/or sympathetic. For example: Mario Puzo's original novel THE GODFATHER has paper thin characterizations and is filled more with incidents than a great story; the movie version is an achievement on a much higher level. If you went looking for greater detail that would further illuminate, you'd be disappointed. (If I haven't muddied the waters still further...)

Logster: None of those books were anything close to being good but the wit of idea possesed, or seemingly, a grand basis for a movie.

I'd give a dollar to see a grand grand book be a good movie. Perhaps At Swim-Two Birds in some adaption?

note : Raymond Carver's work is a nature of exception!

Loci - Please read my review again. I stated clearly: "I'm not referring to the casting of Chinese actresses in the three lead roles of Japanese women. If a performance is persuasive, I forget about nationality." If you've seen the film, Loci, I'd be interested in your opinion.

amen, this isn't just about asian exploitation, but it was just a bad, bad film. horribly written, directed, and acted.

I am pretty much in agreement with Peter on this one - the whole "controversy" about Chinese actresses playing Japanese characters never resonated with me since this sort of thing happens all the time in every film industry - i.e. Chinese play Japanese in a myriad of HK films - but unfortunately the film failed for me on just about every level and I am a big fan of all 3 main actresses.

I had heard how extravagant and glamorous the film was but other than a few scenes most of it takes place in a few drab houses. The house madam is suppose to be one of the most important in Kyoto - she has one geisha and 2 in training - huh? Marshall's acclaimed recreation of Kyoto seemed total PR nonsense - we see very little actually except a shot of rooftops and a few walks thru the town. The characters give very one-note shallow performances - due to the script mind you - and I felt nothing for any of them. Are you suppose to cheer when Zhang Ziyi becomes an official mistress in the end? The exoticizing did not bother me in truth - I think the film actually needed a lot more of that and of being outlandish - then it might have at least been fun but instead the most outlandish it gets is the selling of virginity - which I believe was actually quite common in that buisness.

The language part was annoying - it always irritates me when they make Asian characters speak with English accents - what exactly is the point of that - when HW makes a film like Casanova I doubt that they have the main characters speaking in a funny Italian accent do they - but with Asian characters that is always the case it seems.

Most egregious though is that they just didn't photgraph these actresses very well - Zhang Ziyi can radiate and Gong Li can smoulder - check her out in Wong Kong Wai's EROS/THE HAND for a recent example - but they all looked poorly lit and nothing to shake the trees about in this film. A big lackluster disappointment.

Yes,that's that! I agree with Peter. I haven't seen this film, and I haven't read this book either. The only thing I want to say is that this film is just a commercial thing.Like other commercial products, it's false. We've been cheated by the advertisements. In fact, I never care about Ziyi Zhang or anyone else. I only care about what the director whant to tell us. I don't know if this film is a contrary point of view to the writer. Through Peter's words, I think so. But why the actress apeak English? It's absolutely ridiculous!

Yes,that's that! I agree with Peter. I haven't seen this film, and I haven't read this book either. The only thing I want to say is that this film is just a commercial thing.Like other commercial products, it's false. We've been cheated by the advertisements. In fact, I never care about Ziyi Zhang or anyone else. I only care about what the director whant to tell us. I don't know if this film is a contrary point of view to the writer. Through Peter's words, I think so. But why the actress apeak English? It's absolutely ridiculous!

Yes,that's that! I agree with Peter. I haven't seen this film, and I haven't read this book either. The only thing I want to say is that this film is just a commercial thing.Like other commercial products, it's false. We've been cheated by the advertisements. In fact, I never care about Ziyi Zhang or anyone else. I only care about what the director whant to tell us. I don't know if this film is a contrary point of view to the writer. Through Peter's words, I think so. But why the actress apeak English? It's absolutely ridiculous!

i think this is an excellent movie and book. And no, most books are bettter than the movie, since the movie cuts out alot of the parts from the book.
But back to work, i think you guys aren't giving this movie enough credit. Every movie has errors and if you look past them you can see that the story can be wonderful!

I did not see the movie, but have read the book. It sounds from your comments like the main points of the book were covered in the movie. I am a student of Japanese history, so some of the things in the book struck me as too Americanized, despite the author's many years of research. For instance, the love story with the Chairman with the happy ending does not seem culturally appropriate or even likely. In addition, while I understand how actors often play races other than their own, the Japanese have had a longstanding aniimosity with the Chinese, and the fact that Chinese actresses would be cast, rather than Japanese women, might be considered an insult in Japan. I think the cultural glimpse into the world of the geisha is fascinating, probably quite accurate, and shouldn't be judged by western standards, but unfortunately, already went through the American cultural strainer in the book. It has that unfortunate romance novel cliche: girl meets boy, girl separated from boy through misunderstanding or circumstances, girl reunited with boy at end. I think this trivializes the Japanese culture and tradition.

I totally agree with Nancy who seems to have an admirable knowledge of Japanese culture. To understand the whole implications of the book and movie one has to know and understand their culture. That's a fact. It's also clear racism, americanisation, wrong language/lexical items and wrong geisha images are notorious issues the book and the movie tend to show. I teach in a Chilean high school and my students had to read the book and see the movie. This was an opportunity to make them aware of wrong myths about Japanese culture and as another example of American stupidity to laugh at in my English classes (to make them more amusing!)

I must admit that I had some major criticisms with the book so didn't expect a great deal from the film either. Considering that the book used artistic licence to the point of historical inaccuracy, the film didn't make too bad a job of the material it's covering - my disappointment mainly lay in the use of the English dialogue. It felt unnatural, wasted the nuances of the cast's considerable talent and gave the impression that the film makers were sacrificing authenticity for the sake of a positive international reception. It's a shame really since so many of the leads perform their parts well and when the photography has its better moments it looks amazing.

AS an american with no knowledge of japanese history, I loved the movie. I didnt have any problems at all understanding the dialouge. Even though the geisha was very young when the chairman bought her the snow cone, I wasnt grossed out because she clearly loved him because he was the only person who was ever nice to her. Also I thought the women were very beautiful despite the majority of the scenes being dark. Even though this may not be a typical story of a geisha, I think it is very powerful in showing her struggle of having to hide her true emotions.

the only thing that REALLY bothered me about the movie was that they sort of breezed over the war, not really showing the horrible devistation of the atomic bombs. instead everythings is hunky dory with the american troops which irritated me. the rest of the movie I loved.