Word: chiyo
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...talented big-name producers like Steven Spielberg and Gary Barber, and the plot line of the bestselling novel by Arthur S. Golden ’78. The resulting expectations are completely satisfied by the screen adaptation. The film opens in a small fishing village of Japan, in which young Chiyo (Suzuka Ohgo) is sold to a geisha house in the city. There she begins her training in the arts of being a geisha—grace, dancing, smalltalk, pouring tea—while trying to survive the cruel jealousy of the head geisha, Hatsumomo (Li) and the harsh atmosphere...
...girl from a fishing village must learn to be a lady. A special sort of lady: a geisha, one of the "wives of nightfall" who for centuries have entertained Japanese gentlemen with delicacy, wit and performance skills. At 15, Chiyo has these graces only in embryo; but a famous geisha, Mameha, sees how they might flower. She begins the girl's education sternly. "That is a perfect bow. For a pig farmer." "Rise. Not like a horse." And slowly the eager student with the "watery" gray eyes grows into a captivating woman known as Nitta Sayuri. Hatsumomo, another geisha, sees...
Shooting mostly in California, with a few locations in Japan (including a Kyoto temple whose head monk granted access because he was a fan of Chicago), Marshall got beautiful performances from his cast. Suzuka Ohgo, as the young Chiyo, brings an elfin gravity to the first 40 minutes of the film. Zhang, 26, blossoms persuasively from a girl of 15 to a woman in her early 30s, and Watanabe lends his warmth and regal machismo to the Chairman. But it's Gong Li, in a Bette Davis bitch-goddess role, who strides away with the picture. Her stiletto stare...
...director has to be a chairman and a doctor, a lot of Mameha and a little Hatsumomo. And here, Marshall carries it off. "The very word geisha means artist," Mameha tells Chiyo. "And to be a geisha is to be judged as a moving work of art." That definition suits the film as well. Geisha is a geisha: a vibrant work of art that entertains us for a few hours, then disappears into the night, taking our beguiled hearts with...
These lapses are especially evident when Sayuri is still the young Chiyo Golden seems uncomfortable with the voice of a young girl and often strikes note of rather false naivete. As Chiyo enters the okiya and quickly grows up Golden becomes more assured and his prose finds its natural, comfortable rhythm. From this point on, the majority of his startling observations an images have a delicate beauty, almost a if they were adapted from Japanes proverbs...