This film rendition of the best-selling novel of the same name is an enjoyable love story, but lacks a certain emotional or intelligent oomph to lift it to a greater level. I enjoyed the film from start to finish and was completely engaged, but I never felt swept away by the subject or the love tale.
The film begins with the young girl, Chiyo (Suzuka Ohgo), being sold to a geisha house. She wants to escape, but is thwarted at every turn. Running the geisha house is Auntie (Tsai Chin, THE JOY LUCK CLUB) and the raspy-voiced, chain-smoking Mother (Kaori Momoi, KAGEMUSHA). Chiyo is special because she has brilliant blue eyes, making her an instant threat to the aging geisha Hatsimomo (Gong Li, RAISE THE RED LANTERN). Chiyo must endure though and eventually begins her training as a geisha with Mother’s rival Mameha (Michelle Yeoh, CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON). Taking the name Sayuri, Chiyo (now played by Ziyi Zhang, HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS) becomes the most popular geisha in Japan.
The love story begins when Chiyo is but a girl and is treated kindly by the handsome Chairman (Ken Watanabe, THE LAST SAMURAI). But the love affair is not easy, because geishas are not allowed to dream of marriage or relationships and must sell their virginity to one man. Competing for Chiyo’s affections are the Chairman’s scarred friend, Nobu (Koji Yakusho, PULSE), the wealthy Baron (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, PEARL HARBOR) and the slimy Dr. Crab (Randall Duk Kim, THE MATRIX RELOADED).
Director Rob Marshall (CHICAGO) has been getting a lot of flak for casting famous Chinese actresses in the lead roles. Due to the overall lack of representation of Asian faces in general, I have no problem with this casting. If it’s convincing than it works for me. However, Ziyi Zhang as the lead does present another problem; she isn’t proficient enough in English to handle the dialogue in the most emotionally engaging way. However, when it comes to engaging the audience in an emotional way, the film has far more problems than Ms. Zhang’s handling of the language.
Chiyo and the Chairman are kept apart so much that we never get to be sucked in by their hidden passion for each other. I’m not asking them to be making out in secret rendezvous, but there’s little opportunity in the film for them to even sizzle a bit. The passion also seems one-sided. In addition, the film romanticizes the whole geisha culture instead of delving deeper into the repressed cultural ideals that created the strange relationships between icons of the virginal female and lonely older men. This could have been alleviated by looking more into the private lives of the suitors and why they feel they must go to geishas in the first place.
From what I’ve said it seems I didn’t like the film, but I did. I just was left wanting more in the end. The love story is not bad and the look inside the world of geishas isn’t completely watered down. It just seems the film missed some opportunities to be great. It’s not a down-and-dirty expose of the geisha lifestyle, but it’s a classic romance that’s beautiful to look at, completely entertaining and solidly constructed.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
