Sayuri

Memoirs of a Geisha

I kept waiting for Michelle Yeoh to say something like “by finding a danna you have dishonoured my heritage and must therefore die” and then fly kick Zhang Ziyi square in the face, thus setting the stage for the greatest Geisha/Kung Fu fight in cinema history.
The young Chiyo, Suzuka Ohgo, was flawless. Excellent performance.
An entire cast speaking English as a second language made for a bizarre tapestry of accents. From Michelle Yeoh’s fluent yet distinctive Malaysian-Chinese lilt and Ken Watanabe’s softly spoken Japanese accented English to Zhang Ziyi’s laboured monotone, there was a lot of variety in there. The young Pumpkin even had a bizarre germanic twang going on. It distracted.
When did Geisha dances turn into a trendy Paris fashion show?
A movie set in Japan, about a fundamental aspect of Japanese traditional culture and 3 of the 4 leads are Chinese and 90% of the movie was shot in L.A. What does this tell you about the development of female stars and the protection of cultural properties in Japan. Anyone?

6/10

Memoirs of a Geisha