The movie won’t be released in the USA until December 9, but a few people in Los Angeles who have seen the movie in pre-release screeings are already pre-reviewing it online. One critic at aintitcool.com liked it, while another has some reservations.
Read their opinions here, and remember, it’s just a movie. Of a book. About people. In Japan. Long ago.
Up for some Oscars!
Ah yes, Chinese actresses playing the part of Japanese prostitutes — or at least that’s how lots of pissed off people in China see it.
PRO: The journey is what works best about this film, so I won’t ruin too much of it. Instead, I will explain that this is a mature, greatly enjoyable film. The first half is impeccable in its ability to incite great emotions from an audience more and more weary of 2+ hour films, even though the romantic triangle between Sayuri, the scarred war hero Nobu (Koji Yakusho) and the attractive Chairman (Ken Watanabe) who raised Chiyo’s spirits when she was at her lowest point in her life. This was the focus of much of the book, but here seems to be lightened considerably to focus instead on Sayuri’s own journey.
CON: Rob Marshall, award winning director of such hits as “Chicago” and… well… this, probably, did a beautiful job with the film. The cinematography is beautiful, but it also doesn’t hurt that Dion Beebe had beautiful things to take pictures of.
The acting was great, as long as you go with the idea that all of these people are Japanese and rarely do they ever speak that language. I always find it odd that we’re afraid to make our own subtitled movies. It’s ok if “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” comes to the States and people have to read it, but we don’t want to make our own “foreign film” and listen to those crazy folks speak their own language. Americanize a story completely about the Japanese? Hmph.
The film really does tell a good story, and it is visually stunning. The characters are well played and crafted, and the music by that little know indie artist John Williams, with a little bit of Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Pearlman for good measure, is pretty F’n fantastic.
So I keep saying that the film is good and that it will probably win some stuff, hopefully at least Production Design or Cinematography, etc., but why does it feel like I’m holding back?
Frankly, other than all the English speaking, the idea behind this is what throws me. It’s essentially a film about being a whore (sorry, “companion”, for all you “Browncoats” out there), and how women not only liked doing it, but WANTED to do it, and they felt that this was the only way to survive.
Time magazine, Asia edition, has a long 3 page review of Geisha movie this week, too, by Richard Corliss. He basically sucks up to the producers’ US$80 million investment, writing typical PR drivel that was obviously handdelivered to him on a silver plate, but he does add a few critical notes, saying that not everyone agreed with the casting of the film, in other words, using Chinese actresses with Chinese-English accents to play some of the major roles. He does write that they were coached to speak with slight English accents, but Corliss omits noting that they speak with Chinese-English coached accents, not Japnese-English accents, which makes the entire movie …. UNWATCHABLE!
Boo to Time Asia! They should have done a better job discussing the pros and cons of the way the movie was cast, and how some people in both Asia and North America (and Europe) find the casting choices terribly wrongheaded. Even if they are beauties and great Box Office!
SMILE….
Maybe NEWSWEEK will do a better job? Let’s see.
Bsaically, TIME ASIA says Asian audiences will not care about the casting choices at all, and that North American audiences won’t even know the Chinese actresses’ names anyways, so it’s a moot point. Richard! Is anybody home?
The Making of a Geisha
It took seven years and a lot of crying, but the best-selling book is now a movie. TIME got a first look
By RICHARD CORLISS / LOS ANGELES
The girl from a fishing village must learn to be a lady. A special sort of lady: a geisha, one of the “wives of nightfall” who for centuries have entertained Japanese gentlemen with delicacy, wit and performance skills. At 15, Chiyo has these graces only in embryo; but a famous geisha, Mameha, sees how they might flower. She begins the girl’s education sternly. “That is a perfect bow. For a pig farmer.” “Rise. Not like a horse.” And slowly the eager student with the “watery” gray eyes grows into a captivating woman known as Nitta Sayuri. Hatsumomo, another geisha, sees Sayuri’s promise as a threat. She spits a warning at the girl: “I will destroy you.”
Arthur Golden’s 1997 best seller, Memoirs of a Geisha, enticed readers with its authoritative evocation of an alien, exotic world, one in which women served men less with sexual favors than by creating a simulacrum of the feminine ideal. But the book’s real pull was its take on the Cinderella story, with Sayuri as the young heroine, Mameha as the fairy godmother, Hatsumomo as the evil stepmother and the Chairman, a powerful client of the geishas, as Sayuri’s prince charming.
Now director Rob Marshall, whose first big film was the 2002 musical Chicago, has made this fairy tale into an emotionally sumptuous love story. This intimate epic spans almost two decades, but its script, by Robin Swicord and Doug Wright, never hurries past the telling biographical detail of its four main characters. Nor does the movie’s visual splendor ever obscure the furtive, assertive heart beating under the kimono. It’s still early in the season of Oscar contenders, but Geisha has a shot to join Chicago as a Best Picture champ.
In the cast is a roster of A-list Asian actors. Ziyi Zhang, of the worldwide kung fu hits Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and House of Flying Daggers, plays Sayuri. Gong Li, mainland China’s first international star, is Hatsumomo. Michelle Yeoh, another Crouching Tiger eminence, who was also a Bond girl (Tomorrow Never Dies), is Mameha. And Ken Watanabe, the Oscar-nominated warrior of The Last Samurai, is the Chairman.
These are some of the finest, most glamorous actors on the globe. But their combined name value means little at the U.S. box office. “I’ve gotta believe, in the job that I do, that when you give the audience something that they haven’t seen before, they are going to like it,” Amy Pascal, Sony Pictures’ movie chief, says of her studio’s $80 million investment. “I’m hoping the film appeals to people who have ever been in love.”
Or in love with movies, for Geisha revives the sweeping spirit both of old-fashioned, mature film romance and of a day when Hollywood believed it could tell stories of any country or culture. Purists may complain that the three main geishas are played by Chinese women speaking English. But anyone familiar with current Chinese and Japanese films will tell you that one country is rich in top actresses and the other isn’t. Besides, says Marshall, “I cast for the role, period.”
The movie’s narration begins, “A story like mine should never be told,” and on screen it almost wasn’t. Not long after the book became a sensation, Steven Spielberg signed on to direct; five years and many scripts later, he bowed out while staying on as an executive producer. Lucy Fisher, a producer, jokes that her next choice was David Lean, “but he wasn’t available,” having died in 1991. Other directors expressed interest, but none stuck. Then, in 2002, Fisher and her producing partner Douglas Wick saw Chicago and figured they had their man. “Geishas are trained much like dancers, and as a choreographer and a former dancer who understands disciplined training, Rob had a natural affinity for their life,” says Wick. He and Fisher pursued the director as one would a geisha–sending him bottles of sake, antique prints. “I tried to put the gifts away,” says Marshall, “but I couldn’t. They hooked me.”
Having made the first movie musical smash since Grease 24 years before, Marshall was ready to try something old (since Geisha is also a star-is-born saga, like 42nd Street) that was, for him, radically new (a drama set in a foreign culture he knew little about). “As a director, you should choose a project that will educate you and enrich your life, because you’re going to be doing it for two years. And I thought, ‘This is that for me.’ The scariest part was being able to be educated enough about Japan and the world of geisha to be able to interpret it.”
Spielberg doesn’t question the choice of Marshall either. “When I saw Rob’s version of Geisha,” he says, “I realized that he was a much better choice than me. I like that it was like Kabuki theater. The pauses, the looks of the characters, were all little moments of directorial authorship. The close-ups of the hands in pouring the tea. The shots of the geishas’ kimono trains wriggling like the tail of a fish through a stream. Rob took the liquid metaphor of the water in Sayuri’s eyes and created a river of images. It seemed to be planned by the heart. But it was planned. He had a picture in his mind, and he fought until the picture was on film.”
Shooting mostly in California, with a few locations in Japan (including a Kyoto temple whose head monk granted access because he was a fan of Chicago), Marshall got beautiful performances from his cast. Suzuka Ohgo, as the young Chiyo, brings an elfin gravity to the first 40 minutes of the film. Zhang, 26, blossoms persuasively from a girl of 15 to a woman in her early 30s, and Watanabe lends his warmth and regal machismo to the Chairman. But it’s Gong Li, in a Bette Davis bitch-goddess role, who strides away with the picture. Her stiletto stare can burn in passion or turn on a rival with Freon fury. Facing it, one child extra started sobbing and had to be replaced.
Even in early films like Ju Dou and Raise the Red Lantern, Gong Li had a smoldering star quality. So a diva like Hatsumomo fits her like a cheongsam. She thinks she knows why her character is so mean to Sayuri. “In those days, a geisha could not have her own love,” she says, speaking through an interpreter, “so she had a lover secretly. She’s been deprived of her own love, her own feelings. She has great love and great hate. I thought she might have had the same kind of upbringing as Sayuri. She might have been beaten. Then she turned into a great geisha. I thought there must be someone like her in the world …” The actress begins to cry, which makes the interpreter cry too.
Tears were plentiful on the Geisha set. For Hatsumomo’s final, incendiary face-off with Sayuri, Gong Li stayed on the set all day, crying, never getting out of character. Marshall recalls, with awe in his voice, that “hour after hour, as people worked around her, lighting and moving cable, she stood there weeping, because she couldn’t leave that feeling. I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.” After the actress filmed her last scene, she couldn’t let go. “When Rob Marshall announced that I had wrapped my role and was leaving,” she says, “all of a sudden I just didn’t know where to go.” After the wrap she asked Marshall to go through the rooms of the geisha house set with her. They held hands, walking from room to room, never speaking.
Zhang says she too cried every day: “Playing her was my most emotional role.” And Yeoh, in mock exasperation, says, “Everyone else got to cry. But Mameha couldn’t. She was always in control. The mask was maintained the whole time. All my crying was off camera. After Rob would cut the scene, I’d have to go to the side to let it out.” She credits Marshall with guiding the actors into a true ensemble. “He is very much like Mameha,” she says. “He is playing a chess game. He knows all the moves and the countermoves. He planned it all out. I used to say to him, ‘You’re like silk and steel.’ He has a very tough interior. But a director has to be that way.”
A director has to be a chairman and a doctor, a lot of Mameha and a little Hatsumomo. And here, Marshall carries it off. “The very word geisha means artist,” Mameha tells Chiyo. “And to be a geisha is to be judged as a moving work of art.” That definition suits the film as well. Geisha is a geisha: a vibrant work of art that entertains us for a few hours, then disappears into the night, taking our beguiled hearts with it.
Purists may complain that the three main geishas are played by Chinese women speaking Chinese-accented English. But anyone familiar with current Chinese and Japanese films will tell you that one country is rich in top actresses and the other isn’t.
But anyone familiar with current Chinese and Japanese films will tell you that one country is rich in top actresses and the other isn’t.
Is this REALLY true? Japan does not have any actresses who could have done justice the roles taken by the Chinese divas?
Japundit exclusive!
It turns out, for those of you following this thread, that TIME ASIA magazine’s website deleted a very important sentence in Mr Corliss’ original article that appeared in the TIME print edition:
Here’s part of what he actually wrote in the TIME Asia print edition story:
”Purists may complain that the three main geishas are played by Chinese women speaking English, which they were taught to intone in a lightly Japanese accent. It is a shame that a film with so specific a setting could not have leading ladies steeped in that culture. But there’s a bald fact that is evident to anyone familiar with today’s East Asian films: China is rich in top actresses, and Japan isn’t.
“It is a shame…” That seems to suggest that Corliss was bothered by the casting, no? But the website deletes that sentence. Why?
See what was left out from the original?
THIS:
It is a shame that a film with so specific a setting could not have leading ladies steeped in that culture.
This is very unprofessional and unethical editing on TIME ASIA’s website’s part! Write them a letter at
letters@time.com
I just uncovered the problem between the TIME ASIA magazine print version and the TIME USA and TIME CANADA print and websites. I have now heard from TIME magazine officially that “the original ”MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA” story ran in a 3p version last week in the Domestic (US) and Canadian editions of TIME. That version is on the TIME Domestic and Canadian websites. The TIME Asia editors allowed Mr Corliss to write a much longer version for them. That version ran on the TIME Asia website and in the TIME ASIA magazine in print. The Asia-published text contained the line “It is a shame that a film with so specific a setting could not have
leading ladies steeped in that culture.” While the US and Canada editions of TIME magazine print and online did NOT contain that line. UPDATED
TIME magazine:
“Lucy Fisher, one of the film’s producers, was aware of grumbling [by some people!!!] about the casting of Chinese actresses [speaking English with Chinese accents!!!!} as the most prominent geishas. Some of these barbs made it to the set. [WOW, JAPUNDIT IS FAMOUS NOW!]
According to Fisher, Watanabe overheard one such comment. He turned around and stated, “There is no actress in the world who could play this part better than Zhang Ziyi.”
As Fisher recalls: “That was a happy day for everybody.”
Watanabe sees Geisha not as a documentary but as fiction woven by its director. “Although it is a period piece based in Japanese culture, what was most important was how Rob envisioned it. So I told myself not to be concerned about the details of the Japanese or geisha culture but try to help Rob create what he envisioned.”
PRO AND CON
NEW YORK TIMES:
The question remained, though: Would American moviegoers be grabbed by a film that did not at least include a white performer in a starring role, as have so many East-meets-West Hollywood movies, from Marlon Brando in heavy eye makeup in “The Teahouse of the August Moon” to Tom Cruise in “The Last Samurai”?
AND THIS, same article:
Finally, casting Ms. Zhang, Ms. Gong and Ms. Yeoh, who are all Chinese, as Japanese geishas was a controversial move. As a result, the film’s reception in Asia will be closely watched, though Ang Lee the Taiwanese director said those who object should get over it. “American films are less American every day, because you have to please a world audience,” he said. “There’s less authenticity, so it’s more accessible. Do American directors care about Japanese life more than the Japanese? So what? They’ll probably still watch it with great interest.”
All interesting.
I am curious about the “dance sequence” which as far as I can see doesn’t look very Japanese. Then again, some of the wonderful Chinese films haven’t exactly been fully authentic. Perhaps we should think of this movie as a fantasy of Japan. Certainly many American Hollywood films present a fantasy of America. There have been so many times, for example, when foreign friends have come here expecting a “Dallas,” or “Sex in the City,” or “You’ve Got Mail” type of experience, only to find that the States isn’t like that at all.
This movie is a Hollywood Caucasian fantasty of an Asian book written by a Jewish boy from the New York Times ownership family who interviewed an aging geisha in Tokyo for two years to get his note down and spent five years rewriting his male fantasy five times and the resulting PR marketing by the book publisher and the New York Times affiliates made this a bestseller which Hollywood then grabbed up and has turned into this fantasy of Japan for white eyes market and I think the poster Marie above is correct. This is just like Dallas. We all know life is not like that, and Hollywood is entertaining us to death anyway while the terrorists plot their next 911 move. Is anyone serious?
Dear Reader:
Thank you for writing about the Geisha movie and how you feel about it. We welcome timely, insightful reactions to material
we have published, and we can assure you that your observations found an
attentive audience among the editors. Should your comments be selected for
the column, you will be notified in advance of publication. Again, our
thanks for letting us hear from you. We hope that you will write again
should you discover something of particular interest in the news or in our
reporting of it.
Best wishes.
TIME Letters
By the way, the movie opens in Hong Kong on December 9, in Tokyo on December 10, and stateside December 9. Opens in rest of Asia early January. DVD by April or sooner. Major Oscar night celebrations!
I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree on this one. To me, being
a fan of the book, they would have been speaking japanese to each other
anyway. So given that they are going to put the movie completely in
english, what does it matter what kind of english accent they’re using???
And in terms of casting and your point of having many japanese actresses
that could have played the part - many people thought the same way about
Bridget Jones, who is as British as they come. And yet they went for the
Texan born Renee Zellweger. And after all the hoopla, can you picture anyone
else as the divine Ms. Jones? I can’t.
I’m not a huge fan of Zhang Ziyi. But I really don’t feel the same way you
do about the Chinese casting choices.
For what it’s worth though, it’s gotten some terrible reviews. North
Americans don’t seem to agree with the “subservient” themes. Go figure.
Sony Has NBC Ask, ‘Mom, What’s a Geisha?’
By ELIZABETH JENSEN
Published: November 21, 2005
By now, viewers are getting accustomed to seeing their favorite television characters talk about specific brands of jeans, cars and shampoo as advertisers pay to have their products featured in the plot. But last Monday’s episode of NBC’s “Medium” offered a new twist, with a story line woven around the upcoming Sony Pictures movie, “Memoirs of a Geisha.”
In the episode, Allison DuBois (played by Patricia Arquette) and her husband were getting out for an adults-only evening, and chose to see “Memoirs of a Geisha.” That brought questions from one of their daughters, who wanted to know what a geisha was.
But this was not, as some viewers may have thought, another example of corporate synergy run amok. The deal brought together three unrelated Hollywood companies: NBC Universal, Sony and the program’s producer, Paramount Television, part of Viacom (which owns CBS).
Sony, which does not have a network of its own and was looking for a novel way to market its film, did not pay for the promotional placement, as it did earlier this year when its movie “Zathura” was the focus of a contestant challenge on the NBC reality show “The Apprentice.” But it did buy a one-minute commercial in “Medium,” which was unusual given that the movie does not open until Dec. 9 and movies are typically advertised closer to the time they first appear. Ads promoting the “Geisha” episode of “Medium” ran in advance of the episode in magazines, including The New York Times Magazine.
Sony was looking for “a show that would fit organically with our movies” and saw compatibility with the large female audience that “Medium” draws, said Geoff Ammer, president of worldwide marketing for Sony’s Columbia Pictures.
The entire process took less than a month, from conceiving the idea to Sony executives signing off on the script that the writers came up with, Mr. Ammer said. Some Hollywood writers have complained that their creative freedom is being limited by the increasing number of product placement deals. But, “Medium” writers “were interested in doing this,” said Ted Frank, an executive vice president at NBC.
Although movie release dates often change, “I think they chose a film they were very confident would open on a date they planned,” Mr. Frank said.
By TODD MCCARTHY
VARIETY newspaper
Ziyi Zhang performs a dance in ‘Memoirs of a Geisha,’ helmer Rob Marshall’s bigscreen version of the novel by Arthur Golden.
The mysterious world opened up to readers by Arthur Golden’s international best-seller has been moved to the bigscreen with beauty and tact in “Memoirs of a Geisha.” Long-gestating project may seem like a risky one for an expensive studio venture, given the virtually all-Asian cast, but the combo of the subject’s exoticism, the knockout trio of lead actresses and book-built interest should be enough to lure substantial audiences internationally to what is, underneath it all, a conventional Cinderella story.
On a picture exec producer Steven Spielberg long intended to direct himself, Rob Marshall follows his smash “Chicago” debut with a consummate piece of traditional studio craftsmanship that bespeaks fastidious planning and execution in all departments. From a filmmaking point of view, this is a work that the old Hollywood moguls themselves would have been proud to present.
Despite its refined nature, “Geisha” is mainstream rather than highbrow fare, and reception among the intelligentsia may be negatively affected by the casting of famous Chinese thesps Ziyi Zhang, Michelle Yeoh and Gong Li as the three celebrated pre-WWII Japanese geisha, no matter how good they are in the picture. Issue also leaves open the question of audience response in Japan, where the film opens Dec. 10, the day after its domestic release, and where Gong and Zhang are exceptionally popular. There are arguments to be made on both sides, but this is more a fable than a realistic picture, and Asian audiences for decades have accommodated generalized “oriental” casting in Hollywood pics. Outside of Asia, most viewers could care less, and there’s no denying that you don’t want to take your eyes off these actresses for a second.
Hewing faithfully to the general lines, if not all the specifics, of the 1997 novel, script by Robin Swicord boasts a well-carpentered three-act structure framed by sensitive narration in which the mature geisha Sayuri looks back on her life and a world quickly disappearing. In fact, this narration (by Shizuko Hoshi) helps the picture make it over the tricky language hurdle by serving as a graceful English-lingo bridge between a childhood prologue, which is performed in Japanese, and subsequent action in which two sisters from a remote fishing village, their mother dying, are sent by an elderly father to live in bustling Gion district of Kyoto.
Evaluated for suitability at an okiya — or geisha household — by an imperious woman known as Mother (a fabulously crusty Kaori Momoi), the older sister is turned away. Nine-year-old Chiyo (Suzuka Ohgo), who has unusual deep gray eyes, is retained to join another girl, Pumpkin, doing menial tasks with the prospect of one day being trained to be a geisha.
Ruling the roost at the cramped compound is Hatsumomo (Gong Li). Exceptionally beautiful, she is also arrogant and tempestuous — a diva among geisha, who gives Chiyo a hard time from the outset. Her one weakness is men, with whom she lustily consorts in ways inappropriate to her highly defined role in life. After Chiyo spots her in a passionate clinch with a man, Mother berates Hatsumomo with, “Do you think a geisha is free to love? Never!”
Perhaps the greatest fascination of Golden’s heavily researched novel is its illumination of classical geisha mores, beginning with the clarification (for Westerners, at least) of whether or not they are prostitutes. While necessarily not as detailed as the novel, the film follows in this line, explaining that geisha are elegant companions and practitioners of traditional arts expert at maintaining agreeable decorum and emotional restraint.
Act one closes with Chiyo’s chance street encounter with a debonair businessman simply called the chairman (Ken Watanabe), who inspires her to become a geisha.
At the 40-minute mark, action jumps ahead to the mid-1930s. Chiyo (now played by Ziyi Zhang) is 15 and still the house slave when the sophisticated Mameha (Michelle Yeoh), Hatsumomo’s only rival as the most celebrated geisha in Kyoto, makes a financial deal with Mother to school the budding beauty to become a geisha. This alliance officially pits Chiyo against Hatsumomo, who takes Pumpkin as her protege and demands she never speak to her best friend again. Tension in the okiya rise to impossible levels, as Hatsumomo plots to subvert the gorgeous girl she fears will threaten her own popularity.
But Mameha lays a careful plan for her student’s ascent, one that includes Chiyo’s — now renamed Sayuri — debut as a dancer (a triumph) and the auctioning of her virginity (it brings a record bid). All of this brings Sayuri into influential circles that include the Chairman and his business associate Nobu (Koji Yakusho), a facially scarred man who would like to become Sayuri’s danna, or patron. When Sayuri emerges, like a butterfly from a cocoon, as a full-fledged geisha, a showdown with Hatsumomo becomes inevitable.
This middle section is the most absorbing, as it presents the classical geisha world in what turned out to be its final full blossom. The viewer is pulled willingly through Sayuri’s learning process and is provided with a rooting interest in response to Hatsumomo’s treachery. Set pieces, including the dance performance and a visit to a sumo wrestling contest, are arresting, and there is a bracing jolt whenever the action leaves the dark, cloistered interiors to move into the maze-like streets of the hanamachi, or geisha district, superbly recreated in John Myhre’s infinitely detailed production design.
Third act telescopes the impact of World War II down to the disruptions it causes in the central characters’ lives, as the women are dispersed into the countryside for safety. After Japan’s defeat, Sayuri returns from the rice paddies to reunite with Mameha in a Kyoto teeming with American soldiers. Nobu and the Chairman emerge from the rubble to enlist the women’s help in securing a big business deal with the Yanks, which sets the stage for Sayuri’s highly dramatic final reckonings with the two men. As conventionally pleasing as the ending may be, however, pic’s too-pat version of it leaves unanswered many questions that are dealt with in the novel with a bittersweet embrace of reality.
While scarcely a meditative work such as a Japanese director might have made on the subject, “Geisha” is, fortunately, a much calmer movie than “Chicago,” one with steady dramatic focus and a confident narrative rhythm. The rules and formality of the world under scrutiny may have been contagious to the filmmakers, as there is a welcome sense of composure and orderliness to the enterprise that avoids gimmickry and trendiness.
Craft contributions are of a very high order. Right down to the exterior light, the film is convincing in its physical details despite the fact it was mostly shot in California, on Sony soundstages in Culver City and on locations throughout the state (a few Japanese locales were used as well). Colleen Atwood’s dazzling costumes, particularly the ornate kimono, play an unusually central visual role, as do the makeup and hairstyles. John Williams’ excellent score is dominated by Japanese instrumentations, abetted by Western-style thematic work soulfully played by cellist Yo-Yo Ma and violinist Itzhak Perlman.
As for the actresses, coached to speak English with Chinese-sounding accents, the fact is there are no Japanese female stars at the moment with anything approaching the charisma, stature, box office profits money appeal and international celebrity of Zhang, Gong and Yeoh. In the leading role, Zhang is convincing and mesmerizingly beautiful, even if there is an intangible missing from her dialogue delivery in Chinese-English that gives her somewhat less impact here than she had in her virtuoso performance in Wong Kar-wai’s recent “2046.”
Gong rightly pulls out all the stops as the flamboyant geisha queen desperate to stay on her throne, giving her perf a delicious melodramatic spin that puts one in mind of Bette Davis or Joan Crawford in their primes. Comparatively benefiting from her complete fluency in Chinese-accented English, Yeoh excels, endowing Mameha with a cool intelligence that masks the protracted uncertainty of her all-or-nothing bet on Sayuri’s future.
Japanese thesp Kudoh makes for a wonderful Pumpkin, coming into her own in the third act.
The Japanese actors, including Watanabe as the reserved Chairman who looms distantly but decisively over Sayuri’s life, Yakusho as her restrained admirer and Japanese-American Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as an opportunistic industrialist, are solid in roles that are strictly one-dimensional compared to those of the women.
A thoughtful, old-fashioned touch in the end credits matches the performers’ names with their images.
A++++ FIVE STARS despite silly Chinese-English accents by Chinese diva stars
Reading the reviews of Time and Variety, it appears that US-based reporters have been misled into believing and parroting the producers’ line that the Chinese actresses were coached to speak in lightly accented English, as if this makes them sound Japanese. But not one US-based reporter has commented that these actresses are speaking Chinese-accented English, and not Japanese-accented English, even Ms Yeoh. Why this conspiracy of silence on critics part? Or is it that they just don’t get it?
Or hear it?
A Filipino point of view:
Only in Hollywood : ‘Memoirs’ makes Ziyi Zhang cry
By Ruben V. Nepales
Inquirer News Service
Editor’s Note: Published on page A2-8 of the November 20, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
LOS ANGELES—WHILE TALKING to Ziyi Zhang recently, I was reminded of Ate Vi.
Vilma Santos is bright, pretty and a good actress like Ziyi. Had Ate Vi gotten the same breaks that Ziyi is now enjoying, would Nora Aunor’s arch rival be enjoying international stardom, too?
Just a year ago, the Chinese actress struggled with her English and in fact relied on an interpreter when she spoke to us. But this morning, there was no one beside Ziyi—she spoke straight English, only occasionally pausing until the correct word came to her mind. That was only one of the few instances when Ziyi’s poise was charmingly cast aside: she quickly and lightly bit a finger and crinkled her nose. She looked especially lovely when she smiled.
Dreams of RP visit
Last time Ziyi and I talked, she told me she wanted to visit the Philippines, particularly Cebu. On this morning, the star of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” sighed and said she has been so busy that this trip to the Philippines remains
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a dream.
In this press con for the visually stunning “Memoirs of a Geisha,” in which Ziyi plays the title role, Sony Pictures went all out to evoke the film’s setting. Tons of sand were brought inside Four Seasons’ ballroom and raked into patterns to create an instant Zen garden. A pagoda sat in the middle, surrounded by bonsai trees, lamps and headless mannequins in the lavish kimonos from the movie, bonsai trees and lamps. Lights were dimmed and John Williams’ inspired score (“The Chairman’s Waltz,” featuring Itzhak Perlman and his violin, is my favorite) wafted in the air—before the interviews began, of course.
Before Ziyi, we first had Rob Marshall, who directed the Oscar Best Picture-winning “Chicago,” and had to fend off the inevitable question: why cast a Chinese actress to play the Japanese Sayuri in this movie version of Arthur Golden’s bestselling novel? (Two other Chinese actresses, Gong Li and Michelle Yeoh, also play Japanese women in the film co-produced by Steven Spielberg.)
Rob appeared ready for that, as he calmly explained: “I have a philosophy about casting that has pretty much followed me throughout my career. It’s very simple—you cast the best person for the role. It was what led me to cast Queen Latifah in ‘Chicago.’ Many people said there wouldn’t be an African-American matron of a jail in Chicago in the ’20s. But to me she embodied that character.
“In Ziyi’s case, we looked at women from around the world. The role of Sayuri was a tall order. We had to find a woman who could play 15 to 35, speak English, a great actress since this character has to project a great spirit underneath the kimono. She had to be a brilliant dancer because not only did she have a couple of dance sequences in the movie—in six weeks, she had to learn how to be a geisha on film. It takes a lifetime to learn how to be a geisha but we had to approximate that on film so I knew I needed a dancer. I also needed a great beauty. My job was to find that person, the actor in the world who can bring this character to life. When I met Ziyi, [I knew] she was Sayuri.”
When Rob was asked to compare Ziyi with Gong Li, who plays Hatsumomo, an older geisha jealous of Sayuri, he hinted at life-imitating-art issues between the two Asian actresses (a pair of stars, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Renée Zellweger also anchored “Chicago”). “It was interesting,” he began. “When I first sat down with Ziyi, she said to me that they called her the new Gong Li. I think she was 24 (she is now 26) when I met her and I understood what she meant because to me, Gong Li is probably one of the greatest actors in the world bar none, on every level. I experienced it and let me tell you, it is astonishing to work with her. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Ziyi also has that fire, presence and skill.
“So it was very interesting to see them work together. I think there were some private issues that obviously I had known about. But there was such a challenge in front of us that thank God, it was all about the work. Everybody was working so hard because the challenges were enormous. We became a company and Li and Ziyi were so supportive of each other. It was fantastic. One of the things that was also helpful was that the territory of their roles didn’t cross over. Hatsumomo had her own world that she was creating and Sayuri has a completely different path in the movie.”
Rob laughed when he recounted, “The most important thing to me after ‘Chicago’ was to do something completely different. Well, I was in Kyoto and we were underneath the stage at a school/theatre. They were showing us how a lift came out of the floor and, of course, all I could think of was Catherine Zeta-Jones coming out of the floor and all that jazz. I thought to myself, I’ve come halfway across the world and I am still doing a movie about two rival women in show business (laughter). That just hit me and I thought, oh, Lord, what’s wrong with me?”
Gracious about Gong Li
Ziyi was gracious when asked about working with Gong Li: “I’ve always wanted to work with Gong Li because she is so gorgeous. She’s the best, best actress. Even when I was very young, I would watch her movies. But unfortunately, we didn’t have so many scenes together. Yesterday after I watched the movie, I called her. I said, ‘Congratulations. I saw the movie. You did a fantastic job.’ She said, ‘We really should make another movie together because we have chemistry.’ I am sure we can do a very good movie. It’s funny—when my first movie came out, people compared Li and me. They said I was the little Gong Li and they called me that for quite a while.”
When Ziyi talked about the reports that there was a lot of crying among the actresses on the set, perhaps because of the script’s emotional tug, she choked with emotion, too, as she replied. “Last night, I saw the movie for the first time. I cried at the end. I felt like I went back into my character. In the movie there are so many scenes where I could cry out but I thought about who she is. She didn’t want anyone to see her sadness. In the movie, I cried but I didn’t want to show it too much because the Japanese hide their emotions. I usually held my tears until Rob said cut. I go to a corner and I just let it out…” Ziyi bit her lips, trying not to be overcome by emotion but her tears rolled down, and momentarily, she was Sayuri again, touched by her own memoirs.
E-mail the columnist in Manila at rvnepales_5585@yahoo.com
I liked this comment:
“When Ziyi talked about the reports that there was a lot of crying among the actresses on the set, perhaps because of the script’s emotional tug, she choked with emotion, too, as she replied. “Last night, I saw the movie for the first time. I cried at the end. I felt like I went back into my character. In the movie there are so many scenes where I could cry out but I thought about who she is. She didn’t want anyone to see her sadness. In the movie, I cried but I didn’t want to show it too much because the Japanese hide their emotions. I usually held my tears until Rob said cut. I would go to a corner and just let it out…” Ziyi bit her lips, trying not to be overcome by emotion but her tears rolled down, and momentarily, she was Sayuri again, touched by her own memories.
Memoirs … A Casting Controversy
BY PHILIP CHUNG,
Nov 18, 2005
As soon as the casting for the film version of Arthur Golden’s best-selling novel, Memoirs of a Geisha, was announced last year, there was an outcry from some who had issues with the non-Japanese actors playing many of the story’s main roles.
The three main geishas are all played by Chinese: Ziyi Zhang (House of Flying Daggers), Gong Li (Raise the Red Lantern) and Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). Critics complained that this was again Hollywood not getting it, and wondered how a story that was so Japanese would work (though many supporting roles are filled by Japanese and Japanese Americans).
Immediately upon its 1997 publication, Memoirs was a critical and commercial hit. Told from the point of view of a young Japanese girl sold into geisha-hood in the early 20th century, Hollywood wasted no time in securing the film rights. Various high-profile directors have been attached to helm, including Brett Ratner (Rush Hour), and a version directed by Steven Spielberg with Lucy Liu and Maggie Cheung headlining. But all efforts proved fruitless.
Until Rob Marshall hit it big with Chicago and decided he had to make Memoirs next. It will finally hit theaters on Dec. 9.
This casting controversy is hardly new. As the argument goes, only Japanese actors should play Japanese characters, and so on.
But I think that line of thinking is flawed and ultimately limiting.
White actors are allowed to play different ethnicities. British actors have always played Americans, for example. And no one complains when Brad Pitt plays an Irish or Russian character.
Placing restrictions on our Asian actors would deny us such memorable performances as Mako’s Oscar-nominated turn in The Sand Pebbles playing a Chinese. As Soon-Tek Oh (Mulan) once explained to me –– if he had only played Koreans, his work in Hollywood would have been limited to his guest spots on M*A*S*H. The only criteria should be –– is this the best actor for the part and can they bring an “authenticity” to it?
With that said, I do find the casting of Memoirs troubling, and it has to do with this “authenticity” issue.
Memoirs, though set in Asia, is in English. So if that’s the case, why cast actors like Ziyi Zhang and Gong Li who can barely speak the language? (Yeoh is fluent in English.) Wouldn’t it make more sense to cast Asian American actors of whatever ethnicity who can actually speak English?
I think both Zhang and Li are amazing actors and it’s not an issue that they aren’t Japanese, rather it’s the authenticity issue and Hollywood’s continued lack of sensitivity to it.
Remember the film version of Snow Falling on Cedars? In the book, the lead character is a Japanese American born and bred in the United States — an important aspect of the story. The film starred Japanese actor Yuki Kudoh, a talented actor, but clearly not American. One of the main reasons the film failed was this faulty casting. The lack of distinction between Japanese and Japanese American hurt the very heart of the story.
As a Korean American, when I see films with supposedly Korean characters butchering the language beyond recognition, it immediately takes me out of the narrative.
Now, one might say that Zhang and Li were cast because they are recognizable. But are they really that much more of a name to mainstream America than say Lucy Liu or Kelly Hu or Tamlyn Tomita?
In the end, I’m hoping my concerns are unfounded. I’m hoping that the filmmakers have addressed this issue and the film will be both authentic and great. After all, if the film is a success, it may open the doors for more projects featuring Asian or Asian American characters and themes.
So I can’t help but keep my fingers crossed, but I’ll be ready for the worst.
Philip W. Chung is a writer and a co-artistic director of Lodestone Theatre Ensemble in Los Angeles.
Good question:
“Now, one might say that Zhang and Li were cast because they are recognizable. But are they really that much more of a name to mainstream America than say *Lucy Liu or *Kelly Hu or *Tamlyn Tomita?
Geisha Glam
`Memoirs’ iS MAKING Fashion Tidal Waves
By GREG MORAGO | Courant Staff Writer
The people marketing “Memoirs of a Geisha” know a thing of beauty when they see it. They’re banking that you will, too.
The print ad for the Dec. 9 film is a tight shot of the bewitching, insanely gorgeous Ziyi Zhang, star of the movie version of the best-selling Arthur Golden novel. Her eyes are tinged blue like a Hokkaido sky; her lips are as red as sea coral. You can practically feel the layers of a silk kimono, hear the snap of gold fans and paper parasols, see the fluttering petals of cherry blossoms.
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It’s intoxicating. And brilliantly deliberate. If one movie had a natural tie-in to beauty and fashion this year it’s “Memoirs.” Both Banana Republic and Fresh (a boutique beauty brand) will enjoy tremendous exposure courtesy of exclusive partnerships with Sony, whose Columbia Pictures made the movie with DreamWorks Film and Spyglass Entertainment.
Banana Republic has launched a limited-edition holiday collection of pieces that celebrate the film’s Asian influence, including a silk kimono top, velvet Chinois jacket, satin kimono dress, quilted geisha bag and an Asian tassel necklace. Fresh, which already had a popular Sake Bath and Rice Collection, created new beauty and bath lines that celebrate the film and pay homage to Asian culture. And Zhang’s face graces the package of spring cherry green tea, a Japanese Sencha green tea blended with cherries, from Republic of Tea.
“The movie is a lot about beauty,” said Lev Glazman, co-founder of Fresh along with his wife and business partner, Alina Roytberg. “Everything about geisha has to be understated. It has to have an understated sensuality. It must create an air around you that is clean, deep and sensual.”
To that end Fresh created Geisha Eau de Parfum, made with jasmine flower, rose, peach, mandarin and langsat fruit, which is similar to grapefruit. There’s a beauty palette for the face with blush and lip gloss. And there’s sake bath products that glamorize the Japanese bathing ritual.
The fashion and beauty tie-ins to the film come at a time that marketing and branding Asian-influenced products is hot. Books about Japan and China are out in abundance now. Pearls are coming on strong for holiday gift giving (additionally, jewelry designer Ema Takahashi has created a line called Peony inspired by Japanese ink drawings of the flower). Japanese cuisine remains popular (Nobu recently opened a grand new restaurant in New York and the Michelin Guide just awarded Masa Takayama a coveted two-star designation for his restaurant Masa in Manhattan). And China’s economy is on everyone’s lips these days.
“There is definitely more Asian influence in America now,” Glazman said. “It comes from colors and patterns. You can see it in home décor and home design objects. It’s all Asian-inspired patterns and motifs that are flying out of stores. After the movie, there will be even more things inspired by Asia.”
It makes sense, according to John Barker, president of DZP Marketing Communications in New York. “On the surface, this cross-promotion between Banana Republic and Sony Pictures is a stretch at best,” he said. “But if you look at it from the standpoint of a shared consumer audience, it’s really a perfect match. This film will appeal to educated, upscale women, which is Banana Republic’s customer as well.”
Faith Hope Consolo, chairman of Prudential Douglas Elliman’s retail leasing and sales division, said that anyone who can get the kind of advertising that will be generated by a film like “Geisha” has an edge on the competition.
“For Fresh … it’s a dream to be promoted by a big movie studio,” she said. “Banana Republic has tried to find themselves for so long, and I think this new Japanese-inspired clothing line will put them at the forefront and allow them to better compete with Abercrombie & Fitch and J. Crew.”
Plus, it’s just plain pretty.
“This line is so different in the way we’re positioning it because it’s linked to the movie and the movie is all about beauty,” said Glazman, adding that when he first read the book he instantly saw the beauty. “Geisha treated themselves to the finest of everything. We wanted this to be like a day in the life of a geisha.”
Memoirs of a Geisha:
Sony reportedly is a tad anxious about Rob Marshall’s adaptation of Arthur Golden’s novel, due to the inevitable fact that it features nary a recognizable white star. But the credits of Oscar nominee Ken Watanabe (The Last Samurai), Ziyi Zhang (House of Flying Daggers) and Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) are nothing to sneeze at.
Soundtrack Review: Memoirs of a Geisha
By Douglas Strassler
Memoirs of a Geisha, based on Arthur Golden’s best-selling novel is one the most eagerly anticipated films of 2005. The film is directed by Rob Marshall, who should have won an Academy Award for helming Chicago (the original director was to be Steven Spielberg but dropped out, remaining as a producer), so he knows how to successfully integrate music into a major motion picture. And with Spielberg regular John Williams, arguably the greatest living film composer, on board, the Geisha soundtrack does not disappoint.
Geisha tells the moving story of Sayuri, a Japanese girl taken from her home and made to work as a maid in a geisha house. She proves to be a marvel of a student, charming all the men while secretly coveting the most successful one of all, all the while forced to deal with her jealous, treacherous competitors. Williams has corralled two of his favorite musicians to appear on this soundtrack as well, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and violinist Itzhak Perlman. All work to fashion a gorgeous background to this sweeping international epic.
Ma’s cello backs “Sayuri’s Theme,” a beautiful string performance with flute echoes. He also plays on the complementary “Going to School” and “A Dream Discarded.” String work dominates much of this soundtrack, with Perlman’s work included on “Finding Satu,” “The Chaiman’s Waltz,” “The Rooftops of the Hanamachi,” and “A New Name…A New Life.” The strings serve a fundamental effect here. As the emotionally evocative of instruments (they can poetically mimic the sounds yelling and crying), they provide support for Sayuri’s moving story of pain and sacrifice.
Williams also makes much use of flutes in tracks like “The Journey to the Hanamachi,” “Brush on Silk,” and “Confluence.” The music that plays over the (seemingly long) end credits includes many different instruments: harps, flutes, French horns, which build and then abate to Perlman’s version of Ma’s initial violin theme for Sayuri. Ultimately, an oboe joins in.
This is a gorgeous, if perhaps unmemorable soundtrack. Williams and his friends have teamed up for another flawless round. One can only hope Marshall’s film is as good as this soundtrack.
QUOTE UNQUOTE:
“I really think they should look for Japanese actors from Japan because that would give the story more authenticity. I just hope the directors don’t clump all Asian cultures into one.”
— Jeanie Wong, 17,
The cast, which will most likely be a blend of Asian and Asian American actors, will speak in Asian-accented English.
What does THAT mean?
Beautiful But Extremely Boring
Author: (streetsmarts101@yahoo.com) from Los Angeles, CA
I went to a special SAG screening a few nights ago at the Directors Guild in Los Angeles. I was actually looking forward to the film, especially since Steven Spielberg was attached to direct it about four or five years ago. I had heard many good things about the book, and so had high hopes for the film adaptation. Sorry to say I was deeply disappointed. The film is a feast for the eyes (costumes, set design, cinematography) but ultimately very boring. You keep waiting for something to happen, but nothing really does. As the film dragged on, my date and I kept saying, “Get it over with already“. I will admit that I’m one of the few guys who enjoys “chick flicks”. And this is totally a “chick flick”. I can’t see the average guy enjoying this film. If this film is to succeed commercially, I would say that 70-80% of the audience will have to be female. Even then, I’m not sure how they will respond.
They are releasing the movie in the USA step by step. WHY? Fear of bad reviews? Bad of mouth fears?
Limited release date: Dec. 9
Larger release date: Dec. 16
Nationwide release: Dec. 23
Whatever happens, Danny, thie movie is still gonna get a bunch of Oscars and become a major theme for jokes and asides during the Oscar telecast. It will prob pick up 3 or 4 Oscars and at least 10 nominations. DVD sales will be huge, intl profits will be huge. For an 80 million dollar investment, I say SONY will gross about US$500 million worldwide no matter what the critics or bloggers say, so shut up already!
Interview with Rob Marshall here: excerpts
Question: Did you realize what you had done to yourself?
Marshall: You know, it was exciting in a funny way it’s scary. It was obviously scary. There I was working with an international group of actors, five of who are making their English language debut. It was an amazing experience. I found that something exists between director and actor sometimes that surpasses or transcends language. Sitting and working with them, I’m very lucky that we had the six weeks of rehearsal that we had because it was during that time that we sort of worked out how this would play. I would be speaking English and it would be translated into Japanese and Chinese in front of me. Many times the actors couldn’t speak to each other except in the scene in English. It was extraordinary. But we had the luxury of that rehearsal, and so by the time we got to shooting I felt it was - oddly enough — very natural. I felt we had found our way, and these are the greatest actors really in the world. I have Koji Yakusho, the Al Pacino of Japan, Gong Li, the Meryl Streep of China. I have these great actors and I felt like I was in very safe hands with them.
Question: Do you see Geisha as a form of slavery? Marshall: I found it a very interesting profession. To me it’s a combination of beauty and cruelty. It really was both, and that’s what I think makes it so fascinating. They really are moving works of art. They have to train unbelievably hard, and they work incredible hours. When I was in Kyoto, even today, there are so few left and it’s a very different kind of profession, obviously. You’re not sold into it. You make a choice to do it as a teenager in high school would choose to go to the School of American Ballet or something like that or become a model. It’s that kind of thing now. But then children were sold into these Geisha houses as maids and as slaves, but there was a reward for that ultimately at the end of it if they were able to maintain the work and the house and the training and so forth, and they would become Geisha. But to me the movie is about how you deal with this very difficult profession. (There are, in the story) four different Geisha, ultimately. One, Sayuri, survives. Like the water in her eye, she keeps moving forward and ultimately finds love. But Hatsumomo, sort of the tragic villain of our piece, obviously self-destructs, can’t deal with the restrictions of being a Geisha. Mameha, the teacher, is a Geisha who is the perfect Geisha and the only way she can do that is really put her heart on ice and remove herself from that. And she has that wonderful line where she says, ‘A Geisha has no choice. We don’t become Geisha to pursue our own destinies. We become Geisha because we have no choice.’ And then Pumpkin, the fourth Geisha, is a failed Geisha and becomes a prostitute. So that’s what’s to me the movie is about, exploring that.
Question: How can the modern women relate to this?
Marshall: I think it’s fascinating. First of all, you have to remember something: this is a women-run business, even in the 1920’s and 30’s, when this movie takes place. It’s extraordinary when you think about. The teahouses are owned by women, and these Okiyas are run by women. All that money was exchanged from women. [NOT SO TRUE. GANGSTERS, MALE, ALWAYS CONTROLLED THE GEISHA, WAKE UP ROB!] So there’s a sense this is a female business. I think it’s fascinating to explore, for instance, Sayuri, whose spirit didn’t accept that. To me, she has a modern sensibility in that time; somebody who went against the culture and didn’t accept that she could not dream or that she could not love.
Question: Is this why the book and hopefully the movie resonates?
Marshall: I think it has resonated in terms of the book, for sure. It’s a hidden culture. It’s a hidden subculture inside Japan. That’s what makes it so alluring. For me, even spending two years on it, I’m still fascinated by it because there is no Western equivalent to it. Somebody said to me the other day, ‘Is a Geisha a trophy wife?’ And I said, ‘No, that’s not what they are.’ People try to equate what they are and that’s not what they are. They’re artists first and then, of course, there’s a danna involved, a patron involved eventually, and in the time of our story a Geisha sold herself, sold her virginity.
Question: Can you talk about the casting and why go with Chinese actresses and not Japanese?
Question: The poster emphasizes the blue eyes and they don’t look that blue on screen. Westerners have an idea of the mysterious East. Is this a way to welcome Westerns into the world?
Marshall: No, this is Arthur Golden’s story. That’s what we’re doing the film version of. Arthur Golden’s story is about a girl who stood out from others because she had these remarkable gray-blue eyes and -
Question: Is it possible for a Japanese to have blue eyes?
Question: The poster emphasizes the blue eyes and they don’t look that blue on screen. Westerners have an idea of the mysterious East. Is this a way to welcome Westerns into the world?
Marshall: No, this is Arthur Golden’s story. That’s what we’re doing the film version of. Arthur Golden’s story is about a girl who stood out from others because she had these remarkable gray-blue eyes and -
Question: Is it possible for a Japanese to have blue eyes?
Marshall: Yeah, sure. You have to remember this is a fable, I’ll remind everybody of that, and a fiction. And in addition to that, (with) our story we even stepped further away from Kyoto. Our story takes place in the fictional town of Miako. I wanted to do that because I wanted to really know that this is a story, a lovely fable, an emotional fable.
Question: Why start with the characters speaking Japanese and then segue into English?
Marshall: The reason is because I wanted to enter into this world in somewhat sort of an authentic way, like we’re appearing into a world. One of the things we did throughout the movie was shoot the movie through materials, through bamboo, through silks, things like that, to give a sense that we’re appearing into a unique world, a hidden world. I wanted to start the movie in Japanese so you’d have a sense of disorientation and feel that you’re in a place that’s foreign and odd to you. And then once the voiceover begins you understand that it’s being narrated and being told as a memoir. As soon as the English voice takes over then the rest of the movie is translated to us in English.
Question: You have both in Chicago and Geisha you have established yourself as the - an author. All of the actors that we’ve spoken with today have acknowledged that this is Rob Marshall’s vision. So as a film director who is acknowledged to be an auteur, who is working with material that is not original, how responsible do you feel to that original material?
Marshall: Thank you very much. I feel a great deal (of responsibility). Specifically with Memoirs of a Geisha, it was such a beloved book. I felt a great deal of responsibility to bring it to life in a way that would honor the book and honor this great novel. I sat with Arthur Golden for quite a long time talking to him about the novel and how he got there and everything about it, about the characters. And he was part of the process for me, which it was important to me. He dreamed this up and I wanted to make sure his dream — although in a different form, of course, it has to become something else; it’s a two-hour and 17-minute movie, not a 400-page novel — but I wanted it to have the same feel, the same beauty that he captured and that captured the hearts of his readers. So he was involved quite a bit.
First reviews of the controversial movie “Memoirs of a Geisha” are now starting to appear in the international press, with early speculations from the New York Times and now Time Asia. Sounds positive, but the real fireworks will start in a few weeks when the yellow-press journalism of Japan and China take up the issue of Chinese actresses portraying Japanese geishas. It’s bad enough that Japanese comic books attacking Chinese with blatantly racist diatribes, but I hardly expect less coming back from the other direction.
http://friskodude.blogspot.com/2005/11/memoirs-of-geisha-early-reviews.html
One thing I don’t get is this: of course, Geisha were whores. The ejaculation industry, the Japanese sex industry, began with the geisha. Of course, they were prostitutes, high class call girls. Everyone in Japan knows this, but like the inside outside culture of Japan, they deny it to the outside world. oh, no, they were just artists, dancers! My eye. They were call girls, sex on demand, sugar daddies for patrons, gangsters likely ran the business, had mama-san as their front desk girls, the entire thing was for sex. Come on, dudes, and dudettes, this is, was, always will be, JAPAN. Geisha sold virginity, they sold sex. Come on! Stop this western nonsense and look at the real japan. Maybe this movie will help open your eyes, Purtitans of the West. Geisha were all about sex. The flesh trade began there. The pink salons of today are just later. It all began with the Sayuri girls. Wake up!
That reminds me of the novel, “Memoirs of a Geisha.” I had no problem with a white American man writing in the voice of a geisha. But what bothered me was the absurd content—that the celebrated geisha has blue eyes and begins to admire her American clients for their directness and eventually moves to New York, all despite the American bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. First of all, a blue-eyed geisha would have been considered a freak, not a beauty. The story was told with no irony at all. I found it offensive and considered it a gross example of the Americanization of the Asian culture. Even in the world of fiction, language is historical and has a sociopolitical memory. You can do anything you want, but you have to be responsible once you decide to take on the task. You never enter an innocent territory.
This unusual novel is written in the form of an autobiography but is wholly
fictitious; the author has spent many years studying Japanese culture and
> brings this to the reader in the form of a life story of a girl from 1920’s
> Japan who becomes a geisha. The harsh conditions in which she grew up then
> onto the city to train as a Geisha are portrayed in rich detail with the
> main character really standing out from the pages. The grim struggle as a
> child and the intrigue of her early adulthood told in the narrative make a
> really good read and it’s easy to forget that it is a work of fiction. The
> descriptive passages really show the detailed background work that has gone
> into the book as the author brings to the western reader the
> sometimes-closed world of Japanese culture especially in pre WW2 Japan
> before its dominance of late 20th century technology. Essentially the
> tradition of Geisha goes back hundreds of years accompanying the Teahouse as
> one of Japans more recognisable features. Often in the west Geisha are
> misunderstood to be prostitutes, throughout the book this is explained to be
> wrong as the name really means artist or artisan. There cannot be any doubt
> though that in many places the culture we are shown is abusive and
> exploitative. The young central character is sold into slavery really and
> her sister is sold as a prostitute, she is beaten and abused and lives a
> life of misery in her early years whilst training to be a Geisha. A Geisha
> that whilst shown in the narrative to be some kind of corner stone of
> Japanese culture really comes across as mental physical and sexual abuse of
> children for the entertainment of rich Japanese men. The matter of fact way
> the girls’ virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder whilst she is very
> young - the winner being the rich dirty old man with the most money - and
> the price setting up the girls future life as a top Geisha. Throughout the
> novel the young Geisha vie for the attentions of frankly old men (rich old
> men) in Tearooms. The narrative attempts to draw a parallel between the
> western kept woman or mistress and the Geisha. For me as a reader the
> earlier western supposed mistake of thinking them prostitutes is actually
> closer to the mark. I found it more than annoying as a reader to read the
> characters endless intrigue to defeat other Geisha to get the attentions of
> men that had to be 20 years older just so they could get money to continue
> living the life of the Geisha; the fine silk kimono that feature throughout
> the book, the expensive perfumes and make up, all to perpetuate the Geisha
> culture and the training houses they support.
> In all then a well written but frankly disturbing book that shows a ages old
> system of abuse as a cultural norm masquerading as tradition. It portrays
> well the struggle of women in a male dominated society but those same women
> then perpetuate the problem so it becomes a cycle. The book is set pre war
> and after the war much of this was swept away (I hope) with the integration
> of Japan into western spheres of influence. Worth a read for the quality of
> writing even if the subject matter leaves a bad taste.
Wow - I’m astonished. I loved the book when I read it a few years ago
- turned from page last to page first almost without missing a beat.
For me, Geisha was one of those
put-your-whole-life-on-hold-to-read-this-book kind of books. There was
even a brief period in which I was convinced that “Arthur Golden” must
be a pseudonym intended to drive up sales in a fit of “can you believe
a western man wrote this book?” I’m drooling over the movie - judging
by the trailers, the art direction alone is worth the price of
admission.
Is Golden writing about a culture that exploits a significant portion
of the people who live in it? Yes, without doubt. So was Upton
Sinclair, but nobody would think to write that their social
consciousness makes the subject matter of *The Jungle* leave a bad
taste (although a partiality to sausage might put one off it quickly
enough). I didn’t think that Golden was trying to convince the reader
that his protagonist was empowered any more than Sinclair was trying to
convince his reader that laissez-faire captialism improves quality of
life. As a matter of fact, I thought that what was most interesting
about the book was that it was written from the point of view of…
well, of a bird who is trying to decide whether or not she should be
happy with her golden cage, and that it was a cage of which both she
and her readers were aware. Plus, the travelogue aspect was delicious,
and (I have to admit) the sex did have a mild sort of Lifestyle Movie
Channel titillative quality.
On November 11, 2005,
Zou Hanru wrote for China Daily on the
controversy stirred up by the movie “Memoirs of a Geisha”, which stars
two of China’s most recognizable actresses Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li.
Some Chinese netters expressed their negative views on Zhang and Gong
that they star in a movie concentrated on Japanese culture, and what’s
worse, they play prostitutes in the movie — in Chinese, “geisha” is
literally “arts prostitute” (yiji).
Read Zou’s article in
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-11/11/content_493841.htm
An outline of the article:
* “Memoirs of a Geisha” is eagerly awaited in China, but perhaps
for all the wrong reasons.
* The debate over Zhang’s role in the film first started online,
perhaps with a photograph of Sayuri and her lover, The Chairman
(Japanese actor Ken Watanabe), cuddling and kissing on a
tatami.
* “Why did Zhang accept the role of a Japanese ‘prostitute’?” “Why
did she allow a Japanese man on top of her?” These are some of
the more common questions asked in the chatrooms.
* The accusation against Zhang reminds us of some Chinese
actors who played the “bad guys” in films in the 1950s and 1960s.
But they were persecuted all the same by some misdirected
people during the “cultural revolution” (1966-76).
* The people, unjustifiably angry with Zhang today, failed to
distinguish between acting and real life.
* A Zhang Ziyi and a Gong Li playing the role of a geisha can, and
should, never be a matter of national pride or shame.
Chinese are pissed b/c Chinese women are playing “prostitutes” who are
catering to Japanese men.
Japanese are pissed b/c Chinese women are playing Japanese Geishas
(count the late Akira Kurosawa as one who asked for the actors and
actresses to be Japanese).
Americans just don’t care and wonder when Zhang Ziyi is going to jump
around and kick some ass.
Because Chinese people and Japanese people don’t actually look alike?
Especially when the three Chinese actresses are surrounded by a
supporting cast of actual Japanese actors. It’s jarring
Because, you know, saying that the Chinese and the Japanese look alike
is insulting, and a major Hollywood film is reinforcing that
stereotype, and it’s commercially cynical because the studio and
filmmakers are casting three non-Japanese performers as leads because
they must feel that there aren’t any Japanese actresses with
international box office appeal.
Reply
On November 13, 2005, Andrew McEwen in Beijing contributed the story
for Sunday Herald on the controversy stirred by Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li
starring as Japanese geishas in the new movie “Memoirs of a Geisha”, as
angry Chinese netters blamed them for “damaging national pride”.
Read the article in
http://www.sundayherald.com/52828
An outline of the article:
* Best and bright are far from being the most popular adjectives used
by Zhang Ziyi’s compatriots to describe her. Some 83% of 30,210
voters prefer the catchy combo “Zhang Ziyi has hurt Chinese
people’s feelings and damaged national pride”, according to a
“poll” by the popular web portal NetEase on Friday.
* Just 1699 voters, or 5%, clicked the option suggesting Zhang is
being treated unfairly. A further 11%, or 3354, said an actress’s
choice of roles should remain a personal concern.
* “She has no national dignity,” wrote Tian Jing, a proud Beijing
doctor, via e-mail. “Why did the Korean star refuse and she
accept?” Jing is commenting Yoon-jin Kim, a Korean actress who now
stars in the U.S. TV series “Lost”, who turned down the role later
accepted by Michelle Yeoh in “Geisha”. Kim is quoted as saying,
“Even if it is Hollywood, I don’t want to start by playing a
Japanese geisha. It’s a matter of pride.”
* Su Bahong, a white-collar worker in Beijing, wrote, “The movies
that brought Zhang [Yimou] to fame are about how poor, backward and
even twisted the Chinese and Chinese society used to be. And
boom, ironically, they [Zhang Ziyi, Zhang Yimou and Gong Li] won
major international awards…… It’s about how you choose to
present and represent your own home and folks.”
* Zhang Ziyi has chosen to present herself in bed with - shock,
horror - a Japanese man, actor Ken Watanabe. A typical contributor
wrote, “She sells her body and betrays her country.”
* Part of the anger derives from a common misunderstanding about
geisha in Japanese culture. The word is often loosely translated
into Chinese as “prostitute”. This word also seems reminiscent of
“comfort women”, slave labour and countless other Japanese
wartime atrocities.
* Vicky Zhao, a massively popular mainland Chinese movie star was
attacked during a 2001 concert because she appeared in a fashion
magazine wearing a mini dress with a pattern resembling an
imperial Japanese flag.
* The good news for Zhang Ziyi is that Zhao recovered. The bad
news is Zhao did so by offering a full and complete apology in
China’s official state media.
http://www.sundayherald.com/52828
A must read!
Crouching starlet, angry dragon
By Andrew McEwen in Beijing
AS the cameras clicked and flashed, she swung a skinny arm across her chest and clutched a taut shoulder. The lips, sponsored by Maybelline, pursed for a moment. The world-famous charcoal eyes smouldered. Perhaps it was defiance, perhaps fear. The question that was to follow had been a long time coming.
“Just now you gave a very high opinion of Zhang Ziyi,” began the Fujian TV reporter, addressing director Xiaogang Feng at the Beijing press conference for the movie, Banquet.
“Recently Zhang Ziyi has acted in two movies closely connected to the Japanese which has stirred up strong criticism on the internet. Are you worried that will affect your box office?”
And so the backlash began. Zhang, 26, might want to ask her American English tutor the meaning of “tall poppy syndrome”, the process by which this ancient civilisation likes to cut down its best and brightest.
But best and bright are far from being the most popular adjectives used by her compatriots to describe Zhang. Some 83% of 30,210 voters prefer the catchy combo “Zhang Ziyi has hurt Chinese people’s feelings and damaged national pride”, according to a “poll” by the popular web portal NetEase on Friday.
Just 1699 voters, or 5%, clicked the option suggesting Zhang is being treated unfairly. A further 11%, or 3354, said an actress’s choice of roles should remain a personal concern. “She has no national dignity,” wrote Tian Jing, a proud Beijing doctor, via e-mail. “Why did the Korean star refuse and she accept?” For five hours, Yoon-jin Kim pondered a supporting role in the $85-million (£48.7m) movie Memoirs Of A Geisha, based on the 1997 best-selling novel by Arthur Golden. “Since it was a film by Steven Spielberg and Rob Marshall, I first thought maybe I should just close my eyes tight and just do it,” she said.
Now a star of the US TV series Lost, Kim turned down the role later accepted by Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh, Zhang’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon co-star.
“Even if it is Hollywood, I don’t want to start by playing a Japanese geisha. It’s a matter of pride,” she said. The third and final female lead is Gong Li, 39, mainland China’s biggest box office draw in the days when her lover Zhang Yimou was dubbed an “underground director” of “banned movies” by the Western media.
As Zhang Ziyi is fast finding out, overseas applause does not always win too many golden roosters back home.
“The movies that brought Zhang [Yimou] to fame are about how poor, backward and even twisted the Chinese and Chinese society used to be. And boom, ironically, they won major international awards,” explains Su Bahong, a Beijing white-collar worker.
“People are not jealous because of his success. Otherwise people would hate Chinese Olympic gold medallists too. It’s about how you choose to present and represent your own home and folks.”
Zhang Ziyi has chosen to present herself in bed with – shock, horror – a Japanese man, actor Ken Watanabe. There’s nothing quite like a love scene to bring out the hate .
“She sells her body and betrays her country,” writes a typical contributor. “It’s not going too far if she is cut into many pieces. I used to think putting people to death by dismembering them was useless, but now I feel it’s useful.”
And on and on it goes online. At least one small slice of the anger derives from a common misunderstanding about the role of the geisha in Japanese culture. The word is often loosely translated into Chinese as “prostitute”.
Not only does “prostitute” fail to capture the cultivated essence of the Japanese performing artiste, but it also seems reminiscent of “comfort women”, slave labour and countless other Japanese wartime atrocities.
“Hurt feelings” about the war have a nasty habit here of exploding into violent rage.
Take the Japanese businessmen who indulged in an orgy with Chinese prostitutes in the southern city of Zhuhai three years ago, or better still, the bawdy behaviour of Japanese students in the central Chinese city of Xian a few weeks later. The three young men performed a skit wearing red bras over T-shirts, throwing stuffing at the audience. Word spread that “Japanese devils” were mocking Chinese womanhood. A small riot ensued.
If Zhang Ziyi ever doubted the filth and the fury destined to come her way this December when Geisha is released, she need only call Vicky Zhao. The massively popular mainland movie star was attacked during a concert in 2001 and smeared with faeces by Fu Shenghua, a construction worker whose grandparents were killed during Japan’s wartime occupation of China.
Zhao’s crime had been to appear in a fashion magazine wearing a mini dress with a pattern that resembled an imperial Japanese flag. The ensuing media blitz transformed the former cheeky princess of Taiwanese TV into the number one target for nationalist death threats.
The good news for Zhang Ziyi is that Zhao recovered and is currently appearing in the autumn hit series on China Central TV 1, Jing Hua Yan Yun. The bad news is she did so by offering a full and complete apology in China’s official state media.
As Geisha director Rob Marshall told the New York Times: “It is a celebration of the Asian community. I think it brings the world together.”
13 November 2005
“Why did the Korean star refuse and she accept?” For five hours, Yoon-jin Kim pondered a supporting role in the $85-million (£48.7m) movie Memoirs Of A Geisha, based on the 1997 best-selling novel by Arthur Golden. “Since it was a film by Steven Spielberg and Rob Marshall, I first thought maybe I should just close my eyes tight and just do it,” she said.
Now a star of the US TV series Lost, Kim turned down the role later accepted by Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh, Zhang’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon co-star.
“Even if it is Hollywood, I don’t want to start by playing a Japanese geisha. It’s a matter of pride,” she said.
Great….a chink playing a geisha. Why not get Ron Howard to play Kunta Kinte?
I am sure that the most horrid site will be to hear a woman in a kimono with that god-awful “Oh, you chahge me too 2 cent too much. I want discawnt nao
!” that you hear in every laundromat in San Jose. It will ruin it all.
It’s just a movie people, if you don’t like the casting, don’t watch it! A wise man (ghoti) once said, it’s entertainment not social anthropology.. for cryin’ out loud. Geez!
Thanks, Duo. I appreciate it. Now my wife believes there may be someone on earth dumber than I am after all!
Tell her it’s also entirely possible I’m not dumber than you at all but that we might be equally dumb.
Anyway, sorry I sounded stupid there, but when the discussion veers toward “Chink vs. Jap” again instead of the merits of what looks like a pretty good movie, time to try and steer on track a bit.
Well that or maybe I just got miffed.
I’m with you there. Though some semi-literate racist who spends all his time hanging out in San Jose laundromats is probably not someone I want near my children, or near me, for that matter.
I didn’t say I thought you were dumb, by the way, just the opposite.
One reporter in China has reported this erroneous note:
“Chinese director Zhang Yimou’s (張藝謀) highly anticipated film Memoirs of a Geisha (藝妓回憶錄) had a grand preview screening last Saturday in New York City. Judging from the less than enthusiastic response from the press after the screening, the film is probably not going to do too well at next year’s Oscars.
Attention mainly focused on the performances given by Zhang Ziyi (章子怡) and Gong…”
So HE directed the movie, not Rob Marshall. Nice to know….
Reminds me of Robert Redford and Lena Olin (from Stockholm, Sweden) in “Havana.” Other than having the middle name of “Maria,” there isn’t a damned thing about Olin that’s Latin.
On being practical… Each Japanese actress would demand an actor’s “scale” salary whereas Chinese actresses will work for $50 USD per day. I’d use the Chinese actresses too if I were making a movie. You can’t ignore the financials.
Read the book? The book is rather fantastic.
This whole racial thing has got to go. I can understand some national pride, but really, I don’t see why this should be relevant. As an Asian myself, I am completely against merging all Asian cultures together, since each one has noticible differences. However, as a movie as a whole, does the mix of Chinese and Japanese casting really make it any worse or better?
If it’s boring, then it’s probably boring because of the storyline. If it’s great, then it’s great. It’s the acting that matters, not their nationality. Ken Watanabe, whom I’ve adored ever since I saw in The Last Samurai, admits to everyone that Zhang is the best one who could play Sayuri. This is a Japanese person saying it about a Chinese person.
Geisha, in the beginning, did not start out as prostitutes. In the book, Sayuri almost refuses to sell her virginity. It wasn’t like she was delighted to have her virginity taken away for money. But Mahema reminded her of her debt to the geisha house, and in the end she did sell her virginity. Arthur Golden made sure to inform the readers that it was actually looked down upon by Japanese men for a geisha to have sexual relations with men. But seriously, if you look at geisha with disgust, just remember that they were people also, and yes, believe it or not, they needed to eat and have a place to sleep. They made money from being a geisha. They made money to sing, dance, and be graceful. They made money from pouring men tea and sake, for goodness sake’s! They didn’t go around luring men into rooms and charge them to have sex.
I’m hoping the movie turns out well, since I loved the book. I just find all Asian cultures fascinating. All in all, the movie should be looked at as a movie with acting, not as a complete controversial item to begin war about.
People who are complaining about Chinese actresses playing Japanese geishas, I wonder if you were upset about the heroine of the novel having “blue-grey” eyes, a “Gaijin” physical trait? How Japanese do you think Sayuri looked in A. Golden’s vision when he wrote it with her “blue-grey” eyes? If you can accept the fact that an Asian girl with this particular color of eyes can exist sans contacts/cataracts, then you can certainly get over the fact that the three main roles are played by three Chinese actresses instead of Japanese.
In terms of casting the best talent for the jobs, I think people should also clarify the difference between an “amazing actress” and a “bankable star.” To me, Zhang Ziyi, Gong Li, and Michelle Yeoh got the parts because they are considered “actresses with names” by American movie producers. I don’t think that they are the only ones that could have played these parts. I saw 2046 with Zhang Ziyi, and frankly, I was not impressed. I have seen so many other Asian actresses playing similar sex-kitten roles in the exact same way: a combo of obviously being coquettish and playing a very bad liar. There were only two moments that I felt she reached some kind of depth with the character: (1) When Tony Leung’s character offers to pay for sex; (2) When she hears him having sex with another woman. But just because an actor reached two specific moments in a movie, it doesn’t mean she turned in a tour de force performance or that she is an “amazing actress.” Notoriety does not always mean great talent.
I loved the book. Like the movie but as a japanese american did wonder about the accents, and certain aspects of the film that weren’t exactly Japanese. I really do think that the director should have chosen Japanese actors. The movie lost the magic for me because of that.
bh, agree with you, also. the movie lost its magic because of that. AND Marshall COULD have found some Japanese actresses, he just didn’t want to.
as I posted on another thread (or rather misposted perhaps), Don Morton movie critic for the Metropolis review and biting commentary on Japanese entertainment industry:
Yes, yes, it’s a gorgeous adaptation of Arthur Golden’s Kyoto-style Cinderella tale, and yes, it’s notably the first big Hollywood movie to feature all Asian actors, etc. But you don’t read this page for the PR reprints, so let’s get to it. The Japanese are upset because Chinese actresses were cast in the leads. But this is what happens when you emphasize young and cute over talent in your entertainment industry, so tough. Rob Marshall (of the overrated Chicago) has fashioned a beautiful thing to look at, the screenplay is adequate (if you’ve read the book), and all these fine actors (Zhang Ziyi, Gong Li, Michelle Yeoh, Ken Watanabe) act their hearts out. But it’s all sabotaged by the decision to film the thing in English. Stiff, studied, language-school English. At times I felt as though I were in an ESL class for beautiful and/or talented Asians. Usually one gets over this kind of cinematic linguistic device, but it continually kept me from enjoying the performances and emotions. It would have been more effective (if less globally marketable) had it been filmed in Japanese and subtitled. Called Sayuri in Japan
It would have been more effective (if less globally marketable) had it been filmed in Japanese and subtitled.
My sentiments exactly, Mr Morton!
[…] 7;t really show me how money-driven Zhang Ziyi was. The controversy, however, is discussed here in some detail. Some of my thoughts: 1/Gong Li’s acting was great. 2/none of the Chines […]
Today Ivan and I saw the Memoirs of a Geisha. He loved the movie, I am alright with it. It is beautiful and all, but for some reason it does not rouse me or touch me - I am conscious of the fact that maybe it’s because of my deeply rooted hatred towards Japan. It is an interesting controversy that the three leading roles of this movie are all played by Chinese actresses. My first reaction was positive, seeing that China has more internationally recognized and renowned actresses than Japan, but apparently this movie had enraged many Chinese people beacucse Zhang Ziyi played the role of a geisha who took off her clothes in front of a Japanese man and is topped by him, physically - although I think the sex scene is cut, because I did not see it. But I won’t say much now because the movie itself didn’t really show me how money-driven Zhang Ziyi was.
I saw the movie and was truly disappointed. I agree that it should have been filmed in Japanese and subtitled.
It was just so hard to understand what in the world they were saying, and trying to concentrate on the dialogue took away from appricating a lot of the movie. It’s frustrating to compare the movie to the book, it made me feel bad since I recommended it to people, having read the book. I went in there with high expectations and came out wondering if the movie had clearly caught the book’s beauty.
All in all, I was let down. The acting wasn’t great either. Japanese or Chinese, the acting was all really kind of dull and uninteresting. I’m not quite sure of what I was expecting, but the movie certainly wasn’t it.
I saw the Memoir with great expectation and like so many I’m disppointed. Listening to barely telligble English spoilt it for me. Except for Yeoh, I could barely understand most of the actors. It’d have been a more enjoyable watch if the whole film was in Jap.
I still haven’t seen the movie yet, plan to see it tomorrow, but from most of the reviews worldwide and the posts here at Japundit, it looks like Rob Marshall missed the boat by a long shot. He did try, though, and for that one must give him credit. But in trying to please the bottom line bottom feeders of Hollywood’s movies for profit mission, he missed a good chance to make the movie in Japanese with Japanese actresses. Maybe Hollywood will learn a lesson from all, maybe not. Probably not.
I enjoyed reading everyone’s posts here. Thanks.