Memoirs of a Geisha Movie: No Japanese Actresses

[kenjilina]

Itazura ichiban wrote:

Gee, it's too bad the Japanese don't produce any quality movies.

i've seen plenty of quality japanese movies! my favourite movie of all time is 'ugetsu monogatari'. of the recent ones i found 'love letter' to be absolutely wonderful!

[Itazura ichiban]

I was, of course, being ironic... <3
_________________

- Douglas

[Tu_triky]

KeepMeCaffein8td wrote:

It opens today doesn't it? I'm not going to be seeing it (at least not now, I might consider renting the dvd on a rainy day). Zhang Ziyi's accent kills me, the fact that they're trying to pass that off as "British English spoken with a Japanese accent" is just too stupid for words.

worse yet...how bout Chinese Accented English on a geisha???? that's wackness.

here's article from the NEW YORK TIMES
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December 9, 2005
MOVIE REVIEW | 'MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA'
Underneath the Mask of a Heroine
By MANOHLA DARGIS
Swathed in silk and longing (mostly for a bald guy called Oscar), the big-screen version of "Memoirs of a Geisha" arrives with good intentions firmly in place. Based on the best seller by Arthur Golden, this lavishly appointed melodrama was directed by Rob Marshall, lately of "Chicago," and features the Chinese superstars Ziyi Zhang and Gong Li, and the Malaysian transplant Michelle Yeoh, as Japanese geishas swept up in jealous rivalries during the 1930's and 40's. In this cloistered world, men come and go as do history and warplanes, amid spectacularly unfortunate metaphors about male eels and female caves and one regrettably brief catfight in a kimono.

That catfight happens late in the story, long after Ms. Zhang's character, a geisha named Sayuri, has realized that the greatest obstacle to her happiness is an older star geisha, Hatsumomo (Ms. Gong). Sold to a geisha household, or okiya, as a child, Sayuri has long lived under the same roof as Hatsumomo, first as a prepubescent slave and then as a fully ripe rival. With her eye for beauty, Hatsumomo plots her challenger's demise with a ferocity that brings to mind both Joan Crawford and the Crawford impressionist Faye Dunaway in all their nostril-flaring, no-wire-hangers intensity. Clare Boothe Luce, who wrote "The Women," a poison-pen letter to her sex that became one of Crawford's more famous and least agreeable vehicles, would have approved.

Originally published in 1997, Mr. Golden's celebrated venture into higher-end chick lit centers on Sayuri, who survives a childhood of suffering to become a famous entertainer. Narrated in the first person, the book is embroidered with vaguely ethnographic exotica, Japanese words and phrases and a great deal of hothouse intrigue about who did what to whom and where. To the non-Japanese eye, the life of the geisha may appear intoxicatingly exotic, perfumed with face powder and the mildest suggestion of sex, but at least in the film, which is credited to the screenwriter Robin Swicord, the whole thing plays out like "As the Okiya Turns," complete with devious rivals, swoonworthy swains, fabulous accouterments, a jaw-dropping dance number recycled from Madonna's Drowned World tour and much clinching, panting and scheming.

Then again, there isn't all that much for a geisha to do other than serve and conspire. Rigorously trained from childhood, geishas dedicate themselves wholly to the paid amusement of male customers. Once upon a time in Japan, some women were in the service of procreation, others were employed for recreational sex, while the geisha operated in that gray area in between. (Curiously, the first geishas were men.) Geishas aren't typical sex workers; they're superclassy sex workers who sell their virginity to the highest bidder (the pretext in both the book and film for that unhappy bit about eels and caves) and rely on steady male patronage. But while serving a new customer every six months certainly sounds less untoward than, say, turning six tricks a night in a day-rate motel, who's kidding whom?

The book and the film attempt to attenuate the more distasteful aspects of geisha life, mostly by avoiding the contradiction between its degradations and its glamorous trappings. The story, after all, opens in the 1920's with Sayuri, then age 9 and called Chiyo (Suzuka Ohgo), and her older sister being sold by their impoverished fisherman father and spirited away into the dark, rainy night. The girls are soon separated, with the older sister sold to a low-end brothel and the future geisha sold to her okiya, a beehive of female activity run by a pair of crones cum pimps and supported by the labor of its clipped-wing queen, Hatsumomo. Legally bound to the crones, to whom she must hand over most of her wages, Hatsumomo hopes to secure her future by one day running the okiya.

The exquisite Ms. Gong looks like a gift that keeps on giving when trussed up in silk, but she and the film come most alive when her hair tumbles down and she sashays about the okiya, stirring the air with her tremulous rage. Having seen a very different future for herself in the gray eyes of the new girl, Hatsumomo directs all that fury toward her eradication. In time, this enmity will assume soap-operatic proportions and involve the rival geisha Mameha (Ms. Yeoh), who takes Sayuri on as a trainee, and the two businessmen whose attentions consume so much of the women's and the story's time: the Chairman (Ken Watanabe, the majestic hunk from "The Last Samurai") and his partner and friend, Nobu (the great Japanese actor Koji Yakusho).

Mr. Marshall can't rescue the film from its embarrassing screenplay or its awkward Chinese-Japanese-Hollywood culture klatch, but "Memoirs of a Geisha" is one of those bad Hollywood films that by virtue of their production values nonetheless afford a few dividends, in this case, fabulous clothes and three eminently watchable female leads. Although it's always a pleasure to see these three in action, and there's something undeniably exciting about the prospect of them storming the big studio gate, the casting of Ms. Gong and Ms. Zhang ends up more bittersweet than triumphant. Ms. Zhang, for one, shows none of the heartache and steel of her astonishing performance in Wong Kar-wai's "2046." When her character crumbles with desire in that film, Ms. Zhang's face seems to break into pieces - you can scarcely believe she could put it whole again. Here, you can hardly believe it's the same actress.

Ms. Gong's hauteur and soaring cheekbones work better for her character, a woman of acid resolve. Although there are moments when Hatsumomo comes perilously close to Dragon Lady caricature ("I will destroy you!"), the actress's talent and dignity keep the performance from sliding into full-blown camp. But even the formidable Ms. Gong cannot surmount the ruinous decision to have her and Ms. Zhang, along with the poorly used Mr. Yakusho, deliver their lines in vaguely British-sounding English that imparts an unnatural halting quality to much of their dialogue. The. Result. Is. That. Each. Word. Of. Dialogue. Sounds. As. If. It. Were. Punctuated. By. A. Full. Stop. Which. Robs. The. Language. Of. Its. Watery. Flow. And. Breath. Of. Real. Life. Even. As. It. Also. Gives. New. Meaning. To. The. Definition. Of. The. Period. Movie.

[krim]

Rotten Tomatoes is rating it a 29% (Rotten)

[Tu_triky]

krim wrote:

Rotten Tomatoes is rating it a 29% (Rotten)

'nuff said, huh?

man, i saw the trailer...those three chicks looked hella sad....with the fobbalicious chinese accents?! com'on...they should change the title to
"THREE THE HARD WAY"

[ilovedrama]

Uh who cares about Memoirs from a Geisha when there are so many better dramas on here

[MonsterZero-65]

ilovedrama wrote:

Uh who cares about Memoirs from a Geisha when there are so many better dramas on here

Well said.

[krim]

well...

you cared enough to dig it back out after 3 weeks of no one caring.

[Tu_triky]

krim wrote:

well... you cared enough to dig it back out after 3 weeks of no one caring.

to quote the fatboy of the movie critic world, roger ebert:

"I suspect that the more you know about Japan and movies, the less you will enjoy "Memoirs of a Geisha." Much of what I know about Japan I have learned from Japanese movies, and on that basis I know this is not a movie about actual geishas, but depends on the romanticism of female subjection"

[Bluepanda]

I enjoyed it on some levels, and hated it on others. There were too many villans, most of which were too obnoxious to bear. I did like the lead character, I typically enjoy her performance. Although I definately miss seeing her kicking ass and performing mind-boggling martial art feats. Hopefully her next roles will include some of that.

[mavic0910]

i was excited when i heard that they are making a movie of "memoirs of a geisha" but my excitement was washed away when i found out that the main character which is "japanese" will be played by a "chinese" actress.

can't they find a japanese actress that will fit the role?

[krim]

mavic0910 wrote:

i was excited when i heard that they are making a movie of "memoirs of a geisha" but my excitement was washed away when i found out that the main character which is "japanese" will be played by a "chinese" actress. can't they find a japanese actress that will fit the role?

you have to remember, this is a Hollywood movie, for the American market, most japanese actresses that can act, aren't known well enough in the USA for a major Hollywood studio to spend millions of dollars on.

ZiYi is well know in the US thanks to CTHD

[mavic0910]

@krim: you have a point, but ziyi wasn't well-known when she did cthd & it was a hit... ok, i know it wasn't produce by american production but still, it was a hit in the usa.

and ziyi doesn't look like japanese at all!

[Tu_triky]

krim wrote:

you have to remember, this is a Hollywood movie, for the American market, most japanese actresses that can act, aren't known well enough in the USA for a major Hollywood studio to spend millions of dollars on. ZiYi is well know in the US thanks to CTHD

that's definitely true and i don't dispute that but the argument no longer passes muster when you find out that they were going to give the role to a korean actress....name me a korean actress that an american audience can identify with over any arbitrary japanese one?

[krim]

the same really would apply to a korean actress.

[Tu_triky]

krim wrote:

the same really would apply to a korean actress.

i agree....there would have been a sekai level reaction from the koreans if that was the case.

[ilovedrama]

krim wrote:

well... you cared enough to dig it back out after 3 weeks of no one caring.

Just happens to be a topic I use to increase my post count to 30. So why am I in this thread again? Because replying to this post will increase my post count to 30

[wecky]

[bmwracer]

wecky wrote:

First pointless post of the new year.

[qilver]

ilovedrama wrote:

Just happens to be a topic I use to increase my post count to 30. So why am I in this thread again? Because replying to this post will increase my post count to 30

good thinking....lol

but i would like to say that...in relation to this thread...i have not read the book to this movie, i wonder how closely it follows it, of course the book has much more detail probably...cause you can fit more into a novel versus a movie.