Memoirs of a Geisha

2005

Director: Rob Marshall
Producers: Lucy Fisher, Steven Spielberg, Douglas Wick
Writer: Robin Swicord
Cinematography: Dion Beebe
Music: John Williams
Editing: Pietro Scalia

Stars: Zhang Ziyi, Michelle Yeoh, Gong Li, Ken Watanabe, Kenneth Tsang, Youki Kudoh, Eugenia Yuan, Karl Yune, Cary Tagawa, Mako, Togo Igawa, Elizabeth Sung

Rated PG-13 for subject matter and mild sexual content

Based on a book by Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha tells the story of Sayuri (Zhang Ziyi), a girl who is sold to a geisha house by her poor family. Sayuri is resistant to become a geisha at first, especially after enduring hazing from her "big sister", Hatsumomo (Gong Li). But after meeting the charming Chairman (Ken Watanabe) and seeing how he reacts to geisha, Sayuri decides to accept the help of Mameha, a older geisha who sees a bit of Sayuri in herself. Eventually, Sayuri becomes Japan's most well-known geisha, but just as she seems destined to win the Chairman's heart, World War II breaks out and throws everyone's world into chaos.

Memoirs of a Geisha is certainly a gorgeous movie to look at, both with the costumes/set designs and the actresses themselves. But, at the end of the film, the proccedings end up feeling hollow. So Sayuri endured all that hardship just so she could be "rescued" by a man? It all seemed like some sort of weak male fantasy, instead of the interesting exploration into the world of geisha this movie could have been.

Despite its' big budget and A-list talent, Memoirs of a Geisha has a distinctly "Lifetime movie of the week" flavor to it, which is really brought forth by the fact that everyone speaks English. We just know when the Japanese actors are supposed to really be speaking English when they start talking to white people, because they start pronouncing their r's and l's. Ugh. This is the sort of stuff you might expect from a movie produced in 1985, not 2005.

Some note must also be made of the fact that Chinese actresses play most of the leads, a fact which caused the movie to be banned in China. It might not seem like a big deal to some, but if the film-makers were truly trying to tell the story of the geisha, shouldn't they have at least hired a Japanese actress for the main role? Don't get me wrong; I enjoy most of Zhang Ziyi and Michelle Yeoh's work, but their casting just seemed terribly out of place.

To this reviewer, it was the final shovelful of dirt that fully buried Memoirs of a Geisha down into the realm of the below-average. Don't let Steven Spielberg's name on the credits fool you -- this is as cliched and hackneyed as they come, and really not worth your time unless you're a huge fan of Zhang Ziyi and/or Michelle Yeoh... and even then, you'd really better lower your expectations before popping in the DVD.

RATING: 4