Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Memoirs of a Geisha is a very good movie in my opinion. It first starts off in the countryside of Japan, where a family of four ( two sisters , a mother and a father ) is living in poverty and their mom is very sick . The only way she can get the help she needs is by selling her two daughters to the geisha house to become geisha. When they are sent off to their new place , the older sister is decided by the headmaster to live at a whorehouse to become a prostitute and the younger sister Chiyo who is later given a different name (Sayuri) is kept in the geisha house and must serve in a hierarchy in the household . The movie is full of pain and hardships and Sayuri must learn how to become a geisha and sell herself to the highest bidder. The movie is full of drama and suspense. She has to fight her way through the jealous ness and competitiveness of the other maiko or girls practicing to become geisha in order to become an amazing geisha and work with men or clientele. She falls with a stranger named the chairman who was the only one who showed her kindness when she was little. After she grows up and is the world's most famous and popular geisha she struggles to have a relationship with him and then world war 2 disturbs the peace in Japan and every single geisha and her have to put their profession at rest to stay sheltered . After the war is over Japan has changed and geisha aren't as special as they once were . At the end Sayuri and the chairman fall in love and stay with each other till the end. It's a tragic love story with astronomical boundaries . It's something you can just sit back and watch on a rainy day and admire . It's a very heartfelt movie that you can watch over and over again , and cry over and over again. This is a great movie and I highly recommend it.

I read the book with interest in the past, and this film is not completely faithful to the original version in the book of Arthur Golden. However, it is interesting to see the geishas, their functions in Japanese society and the limit of their intimate relationships. A geisha may have been a servant in her childhood or adolescence, but she may ascend to that position depending on her beauty and the education she received, her art for dancing, singing and even to talk and entertain the demanding patriarchy. Being Geisha is a luck in a society, where the woman is a secondary entity. At least she gets out of poverty and rubs herself into the Japanese aristocratic circle. The film exposes everything clearly with due coherence. Nice to see the performances of experienced actress Michelle Yeoh as well as others as Ziyi Zhang, Suzuka Ogo, Ken Watanabe, Li Gong and Samantha Futerman, an evidence that Rob Marshall looked for experienced Asian actors/actresses, and not only Japanese.

Dull and seemingly interminable. Starts slowly, continues going slowly, thinks of speeding up, but then goes slowly, and eventually ends. All this, and the movie didn't really make a point. It is simply one long drifting story.Plus, the whole movie just seems culturally stereotypical and insensitive. Americans, even senior officers in their army, are brash, boorish louts. Japanese women are submissive to the extreme. And don't get me started on Chinese actors/actresses being cast as Japanese...Performances are OK. The standout is probably Susuka Ohgo as the young Chiyo. American characters are not played well at all.

This is one of the most beautiful movies I have seen - a rags-to-riches story about Nitta Sayuri (Ziyi Zhang), where her childhood life in her fishing-village was depicted and how she was sold to a geisha house in Kyoto's Gion District, eventually becoming one of Japan's most celebrated geisha.Set before and after World War II, Dion Beebe's cinematography captures the brilliance of Japan with its pagoda-style homes and buildings, people-filled courtyards with bridges and streams, and dozens of cherry blossom trees. The people are seen in their culture-rich clothing including the flowing kimono.This movie features, I think, some of most gorgeous actresses from Asia, including Ziyi Zhang and Li Gong. The rivalry between the two were staged breathtakingly; Zhang's Sayuri becomes the new geisha in town whose innocence and beauty surpasses that of Hatsumomo (Li Gong). This sets off Hatsumomo's jealously, and her rage and hatred towards Sayuri was astonishingly depicted. Her coldness combined with her overwhelming beauty made Hatsumomo a stunning villainess.Michelle Yeoh gave a great performance as Mameha, who is a motherly figure to Sayuri and takes her under her wing to make her become a great geisha. All the geisha dances were wonderfully staged; I just wished that Sayuri was given more scenes to show her dance styles and geisha performances.To top if off, the unfolding drama throughout the plot, terrific direction by Rob Marshall and John William's spellbinding music score made this movie an intriguing masterpiece.Grade A-