Amazon.co.uk Review
Chicago director Rob Marshall's pretty but empty (or pretty empty) film has all the elements of an Oscar contender: solid adaptation (from Arthur Golden's bestseller), beautiful locale, good acting, lush cinematography. But there's something missing at the heart, which leaves the viewer sucked in, then left completely detached from what's going on.
It's hard to find fault with the fascinating story, which traces a young girl's determination to free herself from the imprisonment of scullery maid to geisha, then from the imprisonment of geisha to a woman allowed to love. Chiyo (Suzuka Ohgo), a young girl with curious blue eyes, is sold to a geisha house and doomed to pay off her debt as a cleaning girl until a stranger named The Chairman (Ken Watanabe) shows her kindness. She is inspired to work hard and become a geisha in order to be near the Chairman, with whom she has fallen in love. An experienced geisha (Michelle Yeoh) chooses to adopt her as an apprentice and to use as a pawn against her rival, the wicked, legendary Hatsumomo (Gong Li). Chiyo (played as an older woman by Ziyi Zhang), now renamed Sayuri, becomes the talk of the town, but as her path crosses again and again with the Chairman's, she finds the closer she gets to him the further away he seems. Her newfound "freedom" turns out to be trapping, as men are allowed to bid on everything from her time to her virginity.
Some controversy swirled around casting Chinese actresses in the three main Japanese roles, but Zhang, Yeoh and Gong in particular ably prove they're the best for the part. It's admirable that all the actors attempted to speak Japanese-accented English, but some of the dialogue will still prove difficult to understand; perhaps it contributes to some of the emotion feeling stilted. Geisha has all the ingredients of a sweeping, heartbreaking epic and follows the recipe to a T, but in the end it's all dressed up with no place to go.--Ellen A. Kim
Customer Reviews:
Disappointing.......2007-10-31
Memoirs of a Geisha is a great book; a really great, pacey, enchanting, engaging book. I can't recommend the book enough. The film however tries so hard and ends up disappointing.
As you would expect from the novel, it is beautifully shot, with fantastic costumes and vibrant use of colour. The dance sequences are visually stunning, the landscapes sumptious, but this somehow never quite makes up for the lack of credibility in the film's core. What is pacey and hard to put down in the novel is rendered weighty and leaden in this 2 hours plus film. What is emotionally engaging in the novel's interior monologue is largely lost. One of the extras on the DVD shows the screenwriter talking about the central story of "being the best person you can be", living your dream, but this is a story of a girl sold into slavery, sold into the geisha profession and I felt that this misconception of the screenwriter was very apparent in the film.
Additionally, there is the irritation that the three lead characters, the three key geishas representing the epitome of japanese grace and beauty are all Chinese. And they all look Chinese and this detracts from the film's core credibility. Was there really not a single Japanese actress who could have played Sayuri? Look at pictures of geisha and then come back and look at the cast - it's an opportunity missed and surely cultural arrogance on the part of the West to just pick famous Chinese actresses and think it's all the same because they are Asian.
That aside, the acting is good and aside from a few glitches suitably understated. However, the dialogue is in heavily accented English with regular smatterings of Japanese and at times it is hard to hear what some of the actresses in particular, are saying.
My advice would be to read the book, it deserved better than this.
One of my favourite books turned into film with stunning results.......2007-08-15
I became a fan of early Japanese literature after reading a fictional story about Lady Murasaki. After hunting for similar books, it was not long before I discovered Arthur Golden's MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA, a contemporary novel about a young geisha during the time of the Second World War. I loved the book and so when I discovered that it was to be made into a film, I could not wait to see it. Of course, the problem when you love a book and then it is put to film, often you come away bitterly disappointed. Thankfully, with MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA, I need not have worried.
Although there are changes between the film version and the book (something which is inevitable with any adaptation), they were not so big so as to take anything away from the film version. It really is beautifully shot - the attention to nature and to the colours of the geisha world are vividly brought to life. This may seem like a small thing, but actually it is very important. From the time of Murasaki herself, the Japanese have long held an importance over colour - geisha girls would wear kimono that had the appropriate colours for the partciular season, and in early times social rank would dictate what colours they were allowed to wear. And the attention to nature reflects the love of nature that the great poets of early time expressed.
For me, this film truly brought the novel to life, making me want to go back to the novel to devour it again, savouring Golden's fabulous writing.
Beautiful Tale from a Beautiful book.......2007-04-20
Personally, i don't know what everyone was so anxious about before viewing this movie. i had heard a lot of praise about the cinematography and the depth and emotion of the storyline. who cares if the actors were of different race? i know a lot of people will take offense to that, it didn't bother me too much, since it wasn't what i thought of while watching the movie. who has time to think of different dialects and someone being Chinese when a beautiful story of the life of a geisha is being told.
i thought maybe the movie would not live up to the book, but i felt the adaptation was done well. although some of the casting could have been done better, i got chills from mother, angry at Hatsumomo, and grew respect for the character of Mameha, just as i had from the book. the movie did a fine job establishing the highly disciplined world of a geisha, a world where many sacrifices are to be made.
All in all, the movie was fantastic, and if people could just look beyond the issue of worrying about the nationality of a character who is supposed to be Japanese (and to me, its not a huge issue) I'm sure you will enjoy the movie.
Not as good as the book..........2007-03-25
but that isn't to say it isn't a good film because it is!!
I made sure I read the book before I saw the film because from past experiences I found that the best thing to do.
Part of me wishes I hadn't read the book first because it was better than the film, of course the film couldn't go into as much detail as the book but I do feel that they could of made the film longer - maybe three hours - and then add more details. There were things in the book that I would of put in the film and things in the film that I would of taken out.
All in all the film was great to watch and very enjoyable although it was a little bitty in parts of it. It is a great story and a great cast in it and worth being in your DVD collection.
Memoirs of a Geisha.......2007-03-06
Memoirs of a Geisha is a success, simply because it succeeds in leaving you filled with emotion when it finishes. The beautiful, haunting music perfectly reflects a geishas empty life and draws us in to the mysterious world of the Geisha.
In many ways, the film is alot like its main character; beautiful and captivating yet somehow empty. There is definately something lacking in the film. I think it is the fact that Sayuri/Chiyo is meant to be living an extremely lonely and traumatic life, but we don't often get to see behind the outer beauty and enter her head and her private thoughts. We could simply be an outsider watching her life, never seeing the intense emotion that should be present in a film like this.
However, in a way, that is suitable for a film like this. Geisha were not meant to express their emotions, and as Sayuri says 'It is not for Geisha to feel'. So perhaps the strange emptiness of the characters in this film is meant to reflect the life of a Geisha.
Still, that is really the only downside. I think this film is a spectacular work of art, leaving the viewer filled with all the emotion lacking in Sayuri.
Little Chiyo is brilliant, as is Gong Li as the troubled Hatsumomo. And Ziyi Zhang is a stand out performance and stunningly beautiful.
What this movie did really well is give the viewer a detailed glimpse into the Japanese culture at this time and reveal a little more about the legendary and mysterious Geisha. And of course the cinematography is absolutely stunning, leaving us with a grand epic of a film, even if it is not going to be remembered in years to come.
All in all i would recommend this film. It will draw you in to the hidden secret world of Geisha and leave you wanting to know more.
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