 |
Chicago director Rob Marshall's pretty but empty (or pretty empty) film has all the elements of an Oscar® contender: solid adaptation (from Arthur Golden's bestseller), beautiful locale, good acting, lush cinematography. But there's something missing at the heart, which leaves the viewer sucked in, then left completely detached from what's going on. It's hard to find fault with the fascinating story, which traces a young girl's determination to free herself from the imprisonment of scullery maid to geisha, then from the imprisonment of geisha to a woman allowed to love. Chiyo (Suzuka Ohgo), a young girl with curious blue eyes, is sold to a geisha house and doomed to pay off her debt as a cleaning girl until a stranger named The Chairman (Ken Watanabe) shows her kindness. She is inspired to work hard and become a geisha in order to be near the Chairman, with whom she has fallen in love. An experienced geisha (Michelle Yeoh) chooses to adopt her as an apprentice and to use as a pawn against her rival, the wicked, legendary Hatsumomo (Gong Li). Chiyo (played as an older woman by Ziyi Zhang), now renamed Sayuri, becomes the talk of the town, but as her path crosses again and again with the Chairman's, she finds the closer she gets to him the further away he seems. Her newfound "freedom" turns out to be trapping, as men are allowed to bid on everything from her time to her virginity. Some controversy swirled around casting Chinese actresses in the three main Japanese roles, but Zhang, Yeoh and Gong in particular ably prove they're the best for the part. It's admirable that all the actors attempted to speak Japanese-accented English, but some of the dialogue will still prove difficult to understand; perhaps it contributes to some of the emotion feeling stilted. Geisha has all the ingredients of a sweeping, heartbreaking epic and follows the recipe to a T, but in the end it's all dressed up with no place to go.--Read full review
Having read the book I can appreciate how close to the story this film is. But also it is more noticeable how rushed it feels once on the screen. Beautifully shot, great art direction and costumes. The acting was good as well. The only bad thing I can say is that the book covered so much time, history and background about traditions and customs that it could not be covered in just a movie. Recommended to those who love historical fiction and those interested in stories about geisha's and their traditions.
I really didn't like this film, for a number of reasons, the first being that the film was spoken almost entirely in English, with very little or no actual Japanese being spoken. I realize that the book itself, which I haven't read, needed to cater to an English-speaking audience, but that didn't mean the film had to. It could have been spoken in Japanese, with English subtitles, like a lot of other popular foreign films. There could have at least been Japanese subtitles, for those who could have been interested in that. Secondly (and this point has been made before by other reviewers elsewhere), the main character of the actual adult geisha herself was portrayed by a Chinese woman instead of a Japanese woman. Oh, I'm not taking anything away from the job done by Ziyi Zhang, she did very well. I only felt that with this movie portraying the life of a Japanese geisha, the least that could have been done was to have a Japanese actress in the starring role. Finally, the movie itself was rather boring, and even the inclusion of Japanese actor Ken Watanabe, didn't lift the dull pace of the film. Yes, the sets and scenes were "gorgeously photographed", but that couldn't save the film for me. I didn't watch any of the Special Features, and, after seeing the film, I'm not going to, nor am I now going to buy the book. Which is a pity, because the story in the movie had the potential to be so much more. Ah well.Read full review
After loving the book and finishing it in a weeks time, I HAD to watch the movie, but as the title of this states, I was left wanting more. The movie moves way to fast and a lot of valuable insite into the characters thinking and reasoning is left behind. This book made a huge impression on me and kept me thinking about it when I wasn't reading it, the movie however, was just a movie; it failed to deliver what the book did so well. You owe it to yourself to watch this movie even if you didn't read the book: great cast of characters, great visuals and an awesome musical score by John Williams. I enjoyed watching this movie but I enjoyed the book so much more!
This is Rob Marshall's entrance into the life of Japan's geishas, just as his movie "Chicago" investigated the life of that city in the early 1920s. He is an amazing director, being able to get into the thick and thin of what he is trying to cover. The movie is breathtakingly done; only big screen TV does it justice. However, the story is confusing to this American who never had any idea of Japanese customs or lingo. Also, the actual story almost put me to sleep until the end, when surprisingly everything worked out. I bought the DVD with two disks from half.com. The special features disk is so good!! It demonstrates how such a production requires a HUGE amount of money and research and tests the abilities of costumers, make-up, and film producers. My purchase was worth the Special Features disk after watching a ho-hum movie.Read full review
Current slide {CURRENT_SLIDE} of {TOTAL_SLIDES}- Best Selling in DVDs & Blu-ray Discs
Current slide {CURRENT_SLIDE} of {TOTAL_SLIDES}- Save on DVDs & Blu-ray Discs
Current slide {CURRENT_SLIDE} of {TOTAL_SLIDES}- You may also like
