Memoirs of a Geisha

[Deleted]

I saw this at a screening last night. It was fantastic. Such a beautiful movie. I highly recommend this for everyone and the acting was supurb. I hope they don't get over looked during the awards season.

[Karen]

What did you think of the performances, Michelle Yeoh in particular? Gong Li has gotten praise but I hope Michelle has some nice scenes too.

[marywebgirl]

Are any of the actresses Japanese? I don't need 100% authenticity, but jeez.

[Deleted]

I can't wait to see this.

What's sort of cracking me up is the merchandising for it. I never really think of big budget Oscar-ish grown-up movies having much merchandising potential but if you're in a Bath & Body Works (or a CO Bigelow) you can see a whole rack of soaps, perfumes and bubble baths for Memoirs of a Geisha. It's a clever idea.

[realitybug]

I saw that when I was in B & B Works the other day. LOL!

I'm reading the book, I'm liking it so far. I'm looking forward to seeing this movie, most definetely.

[Deleted]

The performances were great all around, especially be the lead. Michelle was really great too and she had a lot of scenes in the film. If one of them doesn't get a nomination out of this, then the academy is full of fools.

[slanderous]

I fear that the release of this movie will mean an increase in "Hey, geisha girl! Konichiwa!" cat calls for me (and other Asian American women). Ugh.

[jynni]

slanderous said:

I fear that the release of this movie will mean an increase in "Hey, geisha girl! Konichiwa!" cat calls for me (and other Asian American women). Ugh.

I hear ya.

Are any of the actresses Japanese? I don't need 100% authenticity, but jeez.

Ken Wantanabe is Japaneese. After looking at the names on the cast list on IMDB, there appear to be a few others as well.

But yeah, the lead geishas are very "Chineese" and it throws the look off - for me at least.

[constantvoyager]

I really don't understand why people would mind a Chinese actor playing a Japanese role. After all, Americans play Brits, Brits play Americans, Canadians play everything, Irish play....

The only real difference is that the Chinese and Japanese don't have the same native language, but then there are so many dialects of Chinese you could get really picky and say that for certain Chinese roles only certain kinds of Chinese should play the role. And I think there tends to be more of a difference between the way Northern Chinese and Southern Chinese look than there is between the average Chinese person and the average Japanese person looks.

And, on a show like Lost, you have Korean Americans (one of whom didn't speak Korean at all before the show began) portraying Koreans, and nobody really seems to care.

I think it's much more important to cast the best possible actor.

[Deleted]

I can understand why people get offended. Especially since this is a film about Geisha's which have a very specific look, thereby emphasizing the look of the actress. It's not the same as a Brit playing an American because you wouldn't be able to tell the Brit was British rather than American unless you heard him speak. That can't be said for Chinese and Japanese. Just because we, the west, tend to group people in very broad categories like "African" or "Asian" doesn't make it right. I mean you couldn't really hire a Nigerian to play an Ethiopean because it would be completely obvious they weren't Ethiopian.

And in this case, with Geisha, where the look is so important to the subject, it seems weird to see a Chinese playing the part.