Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)
Directed by Rob Marshall
In the years before World War II, a penniless Japanese child is torn from her family to work as a maid in a geisha house.
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Unless you've read the book, it might not be obvious when this story takes place, but once WWII hits Japan, the movie becomes something different, more like a wartime romance in the vein of "From Here to Eternity."
I felt some of the same feelings during " Pretty Baby ," the 1978 film in which Brooke Shields , playing a girl of 12, has her virginity auctioned away in New Orleans.
In addition to casting the three lead female parts with Chinese rather than Japanese actresses, one of Japan's most elegant actors, Kôji Yakusho ("Shall We Dance?," "The Eel," "Cure"), has been given the part of the disfigured, bearish Nobu, while the romantic lead is played by Ken Watanabe ("The Last Samurai," "Batman Begins"), an actor with more American name recognition.
In addition to casting the three lead female parts with Chinese rather than Japanese actresses, one of Japan's most elegant actors, Kôji Yakusho ("Shall We Dance?," "The Eel," "Cure"), has been given the part of the disfigured, bearish Nobu, while the romantic lead is played by Ken Watanabe ("The Last Samurai," "Batman Begins"), an actor with more American name recognition.
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'You will get to drink saki and sleep until noon,' Pumpkin tells her, and indeed, this how Hatsumomo (Li Gong, "The Emperor and the Assassin," "2046"), the house's big earner, acts.
Shallow and old-fashioned, “Memoirs of Geisha” is to the uniquely Japanese phenomenon what “The Color Purple” was to the African-American experience, a pretty but fake studio-bound movie, directed by an American director who looks at his distinctive characters from the outside.
To appreciate the irony of such a situation, skip this movie and watch Zhang Yimou�s Raise the Red Lantern.
Playing a heavy in a film like this is either a curse or a blessing - depending on whether the character is to be rendered straight or larger than life - and Gong, who has earned legendary status as an early muse of director Zhang Yimou (Raise the Red Lantern), enjoys her own first taste of success in a project that exploits the exoticism of Oriental culture to highly dramatic if not always believable effect.
The actress first gained the international spotlight for her work in the superb Raise the Red Lantern, in which she played an innocent preyed upon by older, more cunning women.
So we have Ziyi Zhang, whose career was kick-started by her martial artistry in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, together with the Malaysian-born Michelle Yeoh, her Crouching Tiger co-star, and, to complete the trio, Gong Li (Raise the Red Lantern).
Consider, for example, Casablanca (World War II), Gone with the Wind (the American Civil War), Dr. Zhivago (the Russian Revolution), and Pearl Harbor (just kidding).
“Memoirs of a Geisha” still isn’t the type of epic love story that will last for ages, like “Gone With the Wind,” “Titanic,” or even “ Brokeback Mountain ,” but it’s a worthy addition for any fan of the genre.
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Ken Watanabe, who was Oscar-nominated for his warrior Katsumoto in “The Last Samurai,” is cast as the reserved but gentlemanly Chairman, who claims Sayuri's heart.
And Ken Watanabe (The Last Samurai) exudes nobility as the Chairman.
Putting that incidental baggage aside, "Memoirs of a Geisha" is a lovely companion to 2003's "The Last Samurai," being a somewhat Americanized version of a transition point in Japanese history.
In addition to casting the three lead female parts with Chinese rather than Japanese actresses, one of Japan's most elegant actors, Kôji Yakusho ("Shall We Dance?," "The Eel," "Cure"), has been given the part of the disfigured, bearish Nobu, while the romantic lead is played by Ken Watanabe ("The Last Samurai," "Batman Begins"), an actor with more American name recognition.
After she meets an honorable, kind-eyed businessman known only as "the Chairman" (The Last Samurai�s Watanabe, woefully underdeveloped), Sayuri reduces to a thin film of girlish mooniness; Zhang (2046, House of Flying Daggers), an eminently watchable actress, may just be too much of a firecracker to really sell the milquetoast Sayuri.
That fellow, the Chairman, played by the Ken Watanabe of "The Last Samurai," is so warm and charming she falls in love.
Sayuri (Zhang) is a blue-eyed girl kidnapped, in a soft-sold version of the abduction in Casualties of War , from her parents' fishing hovel and sold to a house whose business it is to train Geisha and introduce them into service as living pieces of art for the gratification of rich businessmen.