"Memiors of a geisha" - Review from an western point of view.

Edward Darell who reviewed the film 'Memoirs of a geisha' seems very well opinionated and biased towards what he believes geisha's to be about classing them as 'prostitutes', rather then knowing the facts and going upon how geisha's are portrayed to the western eye.

I have done alot of research upon this topic seeing as i became interested in the traditional way of a Geisha's customs and cultures after seeing this film and although I had the same opion as Edward at the start abnout what i claimed Geisha's to be all about ; mainly being high class prostitutes , after watching this film I then read the actual novel that was the based upon the truth of this film under the same name. I then then figured out not long after this film was solely based upon to entertain the audience it originally intended to , and to entice them into the world of the unknown Geisha known as Sayuri. The 'real' novel which this movie was based upon told a completely different story to how the geisha life is really led.

I had been originally looking forward to viewing this film seeing as Rob Marshall was typecast as the director and Pultizer winner Doug White to co-write the script.

After a short introduction into Edwards own personal experiences , as he views to the readers how he views Geisha's life from his his point of view and deciphers the actors that are used to portray the characters in the film based on the novel. He refers to the main character who i believed to be a perfect fit as the 'bad' girl Hatsumomo is an actor of only an Kmart romance novel/ tv quality. Although i agree when he disputes that some if not all the actors who play the characters in the film are poorly developed . I disagree with this fact as I believe not all are poorly cast into the characters roles as i believe Ziyi Zang is the perfect fit as the blue eyed Asian girl who was picked from the slums into the elusive world of the Geisha , and becomes world known and the best Geisha of her generation. Although I agree with him once more when he agures that this film is based upon Japanese culture amongst the 1940's , that Japenese actors should have been used to act within the film when actually all Chinese actors were typecast into the lead roles.

I once more agree when he discusses that the film could have dealt and posed more important questions such as how could a female handle being a geisha in the ever changing society of the 1960's? but thanks to Rob Marshalls cinetomography teciques i got lost in my train of thoughts and just sat back and enjoyed the beautiful sceneray in which this movie was set in. I disagree with how Edward believes that the haiku-like performances shown throughout the film have all the depth of a "Confucius say" joke , but i believe the way the dance performances are performed through ut the films running bring the depth that the film unfortunality lacked during some apsects including the poor dialect spoken by the Chinese actors trying to perfect the Japenese accent.


I do recommend seeing this film as i rather enjoyed it but do remember most of it is based upon of truth so with the whole elusive world of the geisha when it comes to being opinated about their way of life that has almost distergrated into our society of today , the old saying comes into play of ' Never judge a book by its cover'.

By Emily Treglown