Chinese outraged at “Memoirs”
JAPUNDIT’s Danny Bloom got quite a reaction a while back when he questioned the use of Chinese actresses to portray Japanese geisha in the Hollywood movie Memoirs of a Geisha, which will open in the U.S. on December 9. But judging by the reaction in Asia following the film’s world premiere in Tokyo last week, it looks like there are plenty of people on this side of the pond who totally agree with Danny.
According to reports, the Japanese were bit miffed that Chinese actresses were playing geisha on the big screen, while the Chinese were totally outraged.
Many Chinese are beside themselves that the film’s star, Zhang Ziyi, China’s best-known actress, is depicted in the movie as having sexual relations with a Japanese man.
“She deserves to be chopped into a thousand bits,” said one Internet user, one of more than 1,000 people who posted on the subject at the Tianji (Sky’s Edge) Web portal.
“Zhang is a shameless prostitute,” another posting said. “She should be deprived of Chinese citizenship.
Thanks to JAPUNDIT reader EA for the tip.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/movies/13319030.htm
In addition to the issue raised above, John Horn in the Los Angeles Times link here, gives a revealing take on how the ”accents” problem was dealt with.
Revealing: Before they could learn a new accent, though, many cast members had to lose an old one. “Geisha’s” native Chinese speakers (who include Zhang and Gong Li as the story’s villain, Hatsumomo) would bring one set of enunciations to English words, while native Japanese speakers (Yakusho, Kaori Momoi as the landlady O-kami and Suzuka Ohgo as young Sayuri) would bring another.
As Zhang describes it, a Chinese speaker would tend to pronounce a phrase such as “rock and roll” as “wok and woll,” while a Japanese speaker might sound more like “lock and loll.”
“Everybody had to meet in the middle,” says Drake, who trained the actors in part by burning hundreds of CDs with accent reduction drills. “There are specific sounds that are very difficult for specific language groups.”
Finally, once in the editing room, Marshall found that for all the rehearsals and all the drills, there were several words that just didn’t sound right. Although it was suggested he cast some voice doubles to re-record the problematic dialogue, Marshall refused.
The solution was to have dialogue editor Renee Tondelli search through an actor’s other scenes, clipping a consonant from one word to splice onto another. (In Japan, the film is being dubbed with the Japanese actors speaking their parts.)
December 5th, 2005 at 12:17 amMONEY QUOTE:
They ultimately settled on [trying for, but not succeeding to get] a lightly Japanese-accented English, a choice that proved difficult for several Asian [read: CHINESE] actors to pull off and required some high-tech editing tricks to polish.
December 5th, 2005 at 12:20 amHmm… Do you think the Chinese media may be selectively reporting angry blog comments here?
December 5th, 2005 at 1:11 am…except that was from Malaysian media. Hmmm… I could have sworn I read the same “chopped into 1000 bits” line on a Chinese news site.
December 5th, 2005 at 1:16 amdolts.
December 5th, 2005 at 3:32 amJust as Gone With the Wind is the South’s movie of choice to slam
and love :cry:, this movie seems to have quickly become Japan and Central Asia’s “hate it but could I also love it?” movie. That’s Hollywood for you! 
Now if someone could please explain the film Suicide Club (Suicide Circle) to me…:shock:
December 5th, 2005 at 4:40 amhttp://www.zonaeuropa.com/20051107_2.htm
the debate is actually split in China, only some extremists blame ZZY, which was aided by the media with which ZZY had not had good relationships with since long ago.
December 5th, 2005 at 7:15 amthe conclusion of the essay above,
December 5th, 2005 at 7:18 am“Therefore, I believe that the Zhang Ziyi incident is an issue restricted to cinematic arts, nudity, the lower half of the body and the butt, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with patriotism. As for those comrades who like to raise the flag and sing in the wind, they should not use Zhang Ziyi’s butt for their faces. You need to consider that when you use her butt to represent the face of all the people, you are insulting everyone. You can afford to lose face, but we cannot and we will not.”
“Many Chinese are beside themselves…”
Well, that explains how they got 1.2 billion people.
December 5th, 2005 at 9:01 amWow, I know the desire to save face runs deep in the Chinese, but this nationalism thing is getting out of hand. (Can we have a war over a movie? We had one over a soccer match, so it’s not too hard to imagine. Guess we’ll find out.)
At least the Japanese do have a legitimate reason to gripe about authenticity issues, but racism doesn’t fit the bill, sorry. Hey grow up, comrades.
December 5th, 2005 at 10:50 amHmnn… I’m very much underwhelmed by the movie itself (and probably won’t even bother checking it out), but I fail to see the logic in the post above…
On the one hand you have the people who question the fact that a bunch of hollywood movie hacks willingly ignored the subtleties of different Asian cultures, to instead base their decision on pure marketing and western-centric stereotypes…
On the other hand, you have the reaction of a bunch of ignorant Chineses (no doubt blown out of proportions at many levels), complaining that a Chinese actress would debase herself and betray her kind, by appearing in sexual situations with a Japanese man.
And your point is?
I doubt the best way to argue your point for the cultural insensibility of the producers, is by citing the racist opinions of another group who just happens to have the same conclusion (the movie is anathema and all their actors should be burned at the stake, or something like that).
And in the end, I’m not even sure where in the world people get off talking about “westernizing a great book” rha rha rha rha… I mean, the book was written by a Westerner, for a Western public, with all the sensationalistic crap a Western public wants to read… I am sure everybody here has heard about the debate that surrounded the redaction of the book itself, the context in which its material was gathered, and the shadow that’s been cast over its ethics, if not its historical accuracy.
So please, just don’t come now telling me that evil cultural imperialists have destroyed an innocent jewel of Japanese culture…
December 5th, 2005 at 11:03 amI would think that the Chinese would be pleased that Zhang Ziyi is playing the role simply because it speaks highly of an actors abilities to successfully play characters that are differnt from their true character. That is their job afterall. Why should she be typecasted a Chinese patriot?
I personally would have gone with a Japanese actress though. It seems almost like a no brainer for this particular case. Oh well I still have to see it.
December 5th, 2005 at 11:46 amSan Franciscans understandably feel a special connection to “Memoirs of a Geisha,” which opens in theaters here this Friday, because some scenes were filmed in Golden Gate Park’s Japanese Tea Garden.
But this is a film with myriad connections — including some big-name companies that created special items inspired by and promoted alongside the movie itself. (And the quality is a huge stiletto step up from the kind of low-end toys tied to kiddie meals that other major motion pictures have landed.)
It just goes to show that the USA public’s fascination with the mysterious and opulent world of the geishas is far from being quenched. In case you, like I, did not know about the tradition of applying nightingale droppings to the face to restore a dewy, youthful glow (thanks to my pal Beth Hughes, a journalist who’s worked in Tokyo, for that tidbit), it’s reassuring to know there are many more thoroughly modern ways to pay homage to the ancient art form.
December 5th, 2005 at 12:12 pmI did not know about the tradition of applying nightingale droppings to the face to restore a dewy, youthful glow (thanks to my pal Beth Hughes, a journalist who’s worked in Tokyo, for that tidbit)
December 5th, 2005 at 12:14 pmThe nightingale droppings tradition was memorably documented by Dave Barry in Dave Barry Does Japan
December 5th, 2005 at 12:56 pmGIVE ME A BREAK. This is a Hollywood production. It’s not like Japan chose Chinese actors in the movie and vice versa. You don’t see American’s bitching about Aussies like Mel Gibson playing a U.S. patriot or Nicole Kidman in Cold Mountain, Greeks complaining about Russell Crowe in his glutamus maximus, and South African Charlise Theron playing even more American roles. These are just a few of a thousand other examples in Hollywood. And these films are all okay in my book. The Chinese got to chill the hell out, seriously. Memoirs of a Geisha was written by a man named Arthur Golden afterall.
December 5th, 2005 at 1:19 pmsince when are internet posters worthy of attention? Of course you’re going to find hundreds of millions of underage, sex-lacking nationalist teenagers who can’t stand ken watanabe (and not them) is touching Zhang ZiYi.
December 5th, 2005 at 1:21 pmIf I were 15, and chinese, I’d be angry also.
This is not about nationalities. It is about Hollywood disrespecting foreign cultures for the bottom line of profits. This movie should have been made in japanese with subtitles for each country. Case Closed.
China is China, japan is Japan. The West is the West. Stop playing the race card here. It is not about race or nationality. It is about the cultural imperialism of a Hollywood fueled by bottom line anxieties of its stuidos shareholders. Art is no longer art. Shouldn’t we complain? Of course. Hollywood sucks bigtime and f**ks the world over everyday.
December 5th, 2005 at 1:38 pmThey pulled off Last Samurai pretty well. I don’t see the reason for not doing it for this one…except it would involve a lot more Japanese. Oh wait…the reason’s $$$
December 5th, 2005 at 3:03 pm“Chinese outraged at [insert something even only tenuously Japanese here]“
December 5th, 2005 at 3:21 pm[...] erating post about the “controversy” over the Memoirs of a Geisha movie with a victory lap. But really, who cares? The blog, I assure you, is just playing into marketers’ h [...]
December 5th, 2005 at 4:00 pmI don’t think anybody is playing into the hands of anybody, sir. The movie has just gotten a lot of people riled up, and that is interesting. But like you said, Frog, it’s just a movie. Sit back and enjoy it. Or don’t. Whatever. It’s just a film. I think Saddam’s trial is more interesting, IMHO.
December 5th, 2005 at 4:17 pmIt would be a hella boring world if all the movies set in Nebraska were played by Nebraskan actors and Cuban set films played by Cubans. Al Pacino did alright in Scarface and Benicio del Toro kicked ass as the crooked Mexican cop in Traffic. It’s called ACTING, folks. Hollywood and Acting, they go together. Memoirs was a novel written by a caucasian American, so be it. If the Japanese want to bitch about a geisha movie not played strictly by Japanese actors, well, why don’t you write the movie and produce it. Same goes for China. There isn’t a single great movie in America based on foreign land that was played solely by actors of one nation (or culture).
December 5th, 2005 at 4:27 pmBingo, Davie Jones! Would the LAST PERSON to leave the building please turn out the lights?
December 5th, 2005 at 4:48 pmUh-oh… Looks like Mutant Frog is trying to attract readers again by insulting Japundit.
But I guess their ping-ness envy is understandable - since Japundit gets more visitors in a month than MF has gotten in its entire existence.
December 5th, 2005 at 4:56 pmWhy does the dumbest topic get the most vehement and greatest number of comments?
December 5th, 2005 at 8:08 pmBecause people are intrically dumb and vehement, Paul.
December 5th, 2005 at 8:39 pmdiamondback-how would that attract readers?
December 5th, 2005 at 8:49 pmdiamondback, ignore all this. not worth anyone’s time. negative nobabs of negativity. Call me, Ishmael!
December 5th, 2005 at 9:02 pmPeople see the teaser in the pingback here and click over to MF to see what they are griping about.
December 5th, 2005 at 9:09 pmA woman screenwriter shaped the geisha movie. Yes, true. A woman wrote the script.
Screenwriter Robin Swicord sought to transform herself into an “everyman” when she set out to adapt “Memoirs of a Geisha” for the big screen.
She simply had to trust her instincts as she sought to draw out the essence of the bestselling novel by Arthur Golden upon which the movie is based. “I had to go on the simple thought of, ‘What I loved [from the book] is what other people loved.’ In a way, it is kind of an act of faith,” she recounts.
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The second feature for director Rob Marshall (”Chicago”), “Geisha” stars Ziyi Zhang as Sayuri, who goes from poverty in a fishing village to being one of the most celebrated geishas in pre-World War II Japan. It opens Friday.
Often, adaptations begin with a producer or studio executive picking a writer to get the project rolling. “In this case, Rob Marshall was hired before I was,” says Swicord, who has also penned adaptations of Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women” and Roald Dahl’s “Matilda.” He then requested to meet with her.
“I had to go absolutely unprepared to the first meeting,” she said. “I hadn’t read the book since it came out. When I came into the meeting, it was clear he had a movie in his head.”
After she left, she reread the book and began to take notes. “I wrote an outline of what the movie might look like,” she said. “Mostly, I wrote 18 pages of musing on aspects of the book — the thematic lines that drove the narrative of the story. I e-mailed him that. He contacted me and asked me to come to another meeting.”
Hired the next day, Swicord spent six weeks working on a 70-page outline that resembled a screenplay without dialogue. “It was the film completely envisioned with casting and location breakdowns. The idea was that they would be able to take that and start going to work. Rob had to cast without a screenplay. It was intense.”
The key in writing adaptations, Swicord said, is that “you have to find the stuff that tells the dramatic story. Drama has a very rigorous form, and novels can be so many things. We had a process of trying to find the film, keeping in mind this is a beloved book and there were certain things we knew we couldn’t tamper with.”
Because Swicord was still off working on the script as rehearsals began, Marshall brought in scribe Doug Wright to make changes when needed.
“Some of the lines got tweaked,” Swicord says, adding that Marshall promised her that 99% of her script would remain intact.
“He was as good as his word,” she adds.
December 5th, 2005 at 9:30 pmdavid jones,
there is probably one,
crouching tiger hidden dragon.
yes, yout are right. it is a rarity.
December 6th, 2005 at 3:19 am”They pulled off Last Samurai pretty well.”
Hm well they made an entertaining movie yes but a samurai movie? No not even close.
”Oh hey here take the armour of the warrior you killed, we didn’t like him anyway ahahaaha.”
I really don’t get all the fuss about this movie as far as im aware the book and movie dont claim to be historically accurate. If they do then i definatly understand it but as of yet not heard that said.
It is kind of stupid to cast a chinese actress in the lead, apparently it was because she has international recognition but i mean when has anyone in the west ever heard someone say ”oh hey the new zhang ziyi movie is out lets go see that” Never, people say lets go see house of flying daggers and really never mention who is in the movie unless its a big name star like jet li or jackie chan, not zhang ziyi.
December 6th, 2005 at 4:42 amWow, that is one twist that I never thought would come from this…
December 6th, 2005 at 10:40 amWow, that is one twist that I never thought would come from this…
What TWIST is that?
December 6th, 2005 at 12:42 pmCrouching Tiger has Michelle Yeoh, a Malaysian, another actress people are bitching about in Memoirs. Crouching Tiger was also produced by Chinese production companies, written by Chinese, financially backed and distributed by Hollywood — VERY different from how Memoirs was produced which is all-around an American production from start to finish.
December 6th, 2005 at 1:28 pmHm well they made an entertaining movie yes but a samurai movie? No not even close.
I meant more as far as casting the correct actors and the languages chosen in the movie. It is, afterall, American.
December 6th, 2005 at 2:08 pmMemoirs of a Geisha (review)
By Harry Forbes
Catholic News Service
NEW YORK (Catholic News Service, approved by the Pope) — First things first. A geisha is not, as often assumed, a prostitute, but rather an artistically well-versed companion and conversationalist — as this film informs us early on.
With that out of the way, we can say “Memoirs of a Geisha” (Sony/Columbia) is a beautifully filmed and finely acted adaptation of Arthur Golden’s 1997 best-seller.
It’s the story of Chiyo (Suzuka Ohgo), sold along with her sister by her destitute father into a geisha house in pre-World War II Japan. The hysterical girls are separated when the sister is rejected by the head of the geisha house, an imperious woman known as Mother (Kaori Momoi). The rebellious Chiyo, not promising material on the face of it, will be trained as a geisha, with a first-rate education.
But Chiyo has a rough time of it, made all the worse by the ill-treatment of self-absorbed head geisha Hatsumomo (Gong Li), who time and again uses the girl as a scapegoat.
Chiyo is desperately unhappy, and after she finds her beloved sister in a neighboring geisha house, she attempts to flee, but falls from the roof, after which Mother decides to relegate her to servant status.
Her outlook changes, however, when an immensely kind businessman known only as the Chairman (Ken Watanabe) buys her ice cream. Surveying the attractive women keeping him company, Chiyo decides that perhaps taking the path of a geisha will someday bring her too into proximity with him.
Time goes by, Chiyo grows into a teenager (now played by the luminous Ziyi Zhang), and one day, a rival geisha known as Mameha (Michelle Yeoh) turns up and bargains with Mother for control of her destiny, provided the former can make a geisha out of the unskilled girl in six months.
Sayuri (as Chiyo is now known) indeed blossoms under Mameha’s tutelage, and she becomes skilled in the requisite arts, and learns to hold her own, even against the increasingly jealous Hatsumomo, who has taken on her own obsequious young charge whom she hopes to advance.
Mameha brings about a meeting with a would-be patron, businessman Nobu (Koji Yakusho), who happens to be a colleague of the Chairman. The four of them meet at a sumo wrestling match, but the Chairman betrays no recognition of Sayuri as the little girl from long ago. The misogynistic Nobu takes to the charming Sayuri right away, while the Chairman looks on.
The engrossing story continues from there through World War II and after, when the rarified world of the geisha seems to have come to an end. Throughout it all, Sayuri continues to carry a torch for the Chairman.
The film was a brilliant choice for director Rob Marshall, whose movie version of “Chicago” was his first big-screen effort. Here, in this serious dramatic story, he has crafted what is basically an unrequited romance in the old Hollywood style.
The performances are all excellent, especially the three Chinese women who play the leads: Zhang, Li, and Yeoh. Their casting was controversial in Japan, but their stellar work validates their presence.
The evocation of a bygone world is stunningly executed, courtesy of John Myhre’s meticulous production design.
Inevitably, in a story like this, one must make cultural allowances. As noted, geishas were not courtesans, but women trained to converse with and entertain men with dance and music. They must keep their feelings repressed and not become emotionally involved with men, as we see the defiant Hatsumomo do early on. They sold their skills, not their bodies. They were, however, apparently often paid large sums for their initial deflowering, as happens to Sayuri here. Thereafter, geishas could become the mistress of one particular man, but here Sayuri seems to be saving herself for the man she fervently loves from afar, the Chairman. But the film remains somewhat ambiguous about the extent of her sexual activity, if any.
As noted, the sexual encounters depicted here are brief, dramatically justified and discreetly handled, with no nudity.
The film is a fascinating look at a culture mysterious to most Westerners, and as a story of over-the-years self-sacrifice and devotion that cannot fail to move the viewer.
The film contains some discussion of sexual matters, discreetly filmed sexual situations, including a sexual assault, and a couple of violent episodes. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents are strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.
- - -
Forbes is director of the Office for Film & Broadcasting Censorship of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
December 7th, 2005 at 12:17 pmOrient Excess
Memoirs of a Geisha (review) in leftwing Village Voice in New York
by Dennis Lim (Asian American)
they call it The Gong show
In their great geisha dramas, Mikio Naruse and Kenji Mizoguchi bring an unblinking focus to the everyday realities of being a working woman: Naruse’s Flowing (1956) is a crystalline portrayal of the okiya (geisha house) as a vanishing microcosm and a declining business. Arthur Golden’s 1997 Memoirs of a Geishaan exhaustively researched novel masquerading as an insider’s tell-allmphasizes exotic ritual: laborious face painting and masochistic hairdos, virginity auctions and patronage systems. The movie version of Golden’s bestseller, from the director of Chicago, comes up with a new angle: In this garish pageant of dragon-lady vamping and drag-queen catfights, the geisha experience is roughly akin to working the bar at Lucky Cheng’s.
Swaddled in the posh vulgarity that passes for awards-season elegance, Memoirs is deluxe orientalist kitsch, a would-be cross between Showgirls and Raise the Red Lantern, too dumb to cause offense though falling short of the oblivious abandon that could have vaulted it into high camp. While Golden’s book was praised as a persuasive feat of ventriloquist empathy, Rob Marshall’s movie is something of a lip-synch disaster: Chinese actresses play Japanese geisha (in a period concurrent with the Sino-Japanese war) and speak English the way Hollywood has always imagined Asians do, all stilted syntax and awkward enunciations (”You are! To become! Geisha!”). Golden coyly framed his novel as a translated autobiography, and the author invented for his stereotypical model of Eastern femininity an accordingly docile voice. The movie at least drops any pretense of authenticity, supplanting the whispery “Asianness” of Golden’s prose with the heavy breathing of a filmmaker who goes weak-kneed at the merest glimpse of silk brocade.
Against the color-coded tumult of flicked fans and twirled umbrellas, the slenderness and predictability of Golden’s fiction becomes painfully apparent. Drained of all anthropological value and incongruously imbued with Chicago’s rancid showbiz cynicism, Memoirs is recast as an aspirational melodrama. Sold into an okiya in childhood, mysteriously blue-eyed Sayuri (Ziyi Zhang), often shot through bars and slats in case we fail to grasp her caged condition, longs to escape servitudeto become geisha!which she does under the tutelage of the kindly Mameha (Michelle Yeoh) and despite the vengeful plotting of the slatternly Hatsumomo (Gong Li). She also yearns, somewhat creepily, for true love with a generous big shot known as the Chairman (Ken Watanabe), whom she meets as a prepubescent. And in the scheme of this movie, which dispenses with pesky World War II in one or two sonorous voiceover lines, what Sayuri wants, Sayuri gets.
“What do we know about entertaining Americans?” one geisha asks another, rallying to put on a postwar show. It’s also Marshall’s foremost concern, of course, and as he can attest, Americansor at least Academy votersare gluttons for that old razzle-dazzle. In this back-lot Kyoto, which seems to have been achieved by plopping down some pointy Asian roofs on the set of Chicago, something is always falling from the sky: rain, snow, and on special occasions, cherry blossoms. The overall aesthetic could be approximated by turning on a wind machine in a Chinatown souvenir emporium. With Marshall preoccupied picking out fabrics and lacquer veneers, the task of directing the actors seems to have fallen to the beleaguered dialect coach. To complement the clashing accents, Memoirs is a free-for-all of wildly divergent acting styles. Zhang’s phonetic struggles are the most (mis)pronounced, but she throws herself heartily into the film’s hilariously anachronistic big number, a splashy expressionist routine on platform clogs that would have cleaned up on So You Think You Can Dance?
The supporting actors, who include some of Asia’s biggest Chinese stars, mount savvier defense strategies. Poised as ever, Yeoh seems to be meditating as much as acting, creating a zone of Zen self-containment. In a quietly subversive turn, charismatic Koji Yakusho, despite sporting a decorously scarred cheek, makes rival suitor Nobu a more enticing romantic prospect than the Chairman. Best of all, Gong uncorks a broad, gestural performance that both captures the spirit of the movie and signals her superiority to it. Memoirs scans as round two in the battle of the Zhang Yimou leading ladies, carried over from 2046, and this bout also goes to Gong. Clad in chinchilla-fringed outfits and hurling sidelong death glares, Gong’s viperous Hatsumomo wipes the floor with Zhang’s cowering Sayuri: “I shall destroy you!” she hisses in the most Showgirls-like scene. What’s more, she doesn’t overstay her welcome. Hatsumomo’s dramatic exit seems to sum up Gong’s attitude toward the film: She torches the place and defiantly strides away from the smoldering wreckage.
NO STARS!
December 7th, 2005 at 12:40 pm‘Last Samurai’ star Ken Watanabe marries
Associated Press
TOKYO - Ken Watanabe has wed Kaho Minami, the actor said Wednesday.
The 46-year-old Watanabe - who received an Oscar nomination for his role in “The Last Samurai” opposite Tom Cruise - tied the knot with Japanese film actress Minami, 41, according to a statement issued by the couple.
“We’ve both experienced rough seas, but we’ve now found tranquility and fortune,” the pair said from New York, where Watanabe is based. “We want to keep supporting each other and sharing our time together.”
Earlier this year, Watanabe divorced his former wife, with whom he has two children. Minami parted with her first husband in 2000.
The couple plan to hold a wedding reception in Tokyo, but have not decided on a date or place, according to the statement.
Watanabe, who worked mainly in Japanese films before 2003’s “The Last Samurai,” co-stars in the upcoming “Memoirs of a Geisha,” which hits limited theaters Friday, and expands nationally Dec. 23.
December 8th, 2005 at 11:52 amTime Asia’s recent report on Memoirs of a Geisha, the first big-budget Hollywood movie with an all-Asian cast, prompted readers writint letters to the editr to TIME to discuss the repression of women and the merits of Chinese and Japanese actors
Memoirs of a Geisha may be a good film [Nov. 21], but any culture that uses women in a patronizing way deserves to be criticized. Societies that respect women will progress; the rest will degenerate.
Krishna RamanChennai, India
DEAR EDITOR:
December 13th, 2005 at 1:17 pmReporter Richard Corliss says China is rich in top actresses and Japan isn’t. But there are wonderful Japanese actresses in The Last Samurai (2003) and The Twilight Samurai (2002), and the latter was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign-language movie. Just because Chinese films are better marketed than those made in Japan doesn’t mean that Chinese actors are more talented.
Kazuho Baba
Anaheim, California,
Just so everyone knows, 5 Catholic Stars is is a fraud. There is no Catholic Office of Film and Broadcasting CENSORSHIP. He added that last word. And, no, Catholic News Service is neither the origin of the review, nor is Catholic News Service OR the true origin approved by the Pope.
The true origin is the Office of Film and Broadcasting, run by flaming PBS critic Harry Forbes. His glowing review of Brokeback Mountain and other movies endorsing homosexuality has many people calling for Pope Benedict to review his office.
December 16th, 2005 at 5:06 pmHi!
I found your blog from google today.
I’m so interested in it.
I just want to leave a comment to you.
My English is not so good,sorry!
Do you like Japanese culture?
I was amazing because you know much about Japan and written in English.
I like “Memoirs of a Geisha”so much!
See you, Sayonara
KAORI
December 19th, 2005 at 9:43 pmWelcome, Kaori!
Your English looks fine to me!
December 20th, 2005 at 12:10 amIt’s a freakin movie, for crying out loud. Talk about your proverbial tempest in a teapot.
December 20th, 2005 at 1:17 amAs for the complaints about Hollywood caring about the bottom line, my response is: so f’ing what. The movie studios are businesses like any other. If they don’t make money they cease to exist, just like every other non-government run business. Trying to use the statement “they care about profit” as an insult demonstrates a profound ignorance of even the most basic economic knowledge. Show me a company that is not motivated by the bottom line and I will show you a company that is not long for this world.
And to reitirate what another poster so aptly stated, people from different cultures and countries play American characters all the time. I don’t remember any uproars the last time this occured. It’s hilarious and pathetic when people act like it’s a bad thing only when Asian countries are involved. Why then didn’t anybody bitch when the male lead in another movie starring Zhang Ziyi, The House of Flying Daggers, was played by a Japanese person.