A review of "Memoirs of a Geisha" from the Japan Times

[Lydia Leftcoast]

"It's a tough job but someone's gotta do it. It all strikes me as a bit perverse, though, having me -- a Japanese woman who spent part of her childhood in a hanamachi (geisha district) -- write a review of "Memoirs of a Geisha" (released in Japan as "Sayuri").

"There are just so many things wrong with the whole package, which is plastered with kitschy oriental cliches. We're talking about a Chinese actress speaking in that stilted Hollywood Asian-English (immortalized by Mr. Yuniyoshi in "Breakfast at Tiffany's") in the role of a Japanese geisha during the Sino-Japanese conflict of the 1930s. It's hard to know how to handle this: go ballistic, start apologizing, giggle nervously or what?

"Late into the movie, when American G.I.'s are in control of Kyoto, seasoned geisha Mameha (Michelle Yeoh) wonders out loud to her protege Sayuri (Zhang Ziyi): "What do we know about entertaining Americans?" This pretty much sums it all up. From start to finish, "Memoirs" is hot in pursuit of entertaining a U.S. audience, certain in the conviction that if it can wow the folks in America, it can wow the world..."

More here...

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?ff20051215a1.htm

[NuttyFluffers]

1. well, that's a bit disappointing...

that said, the previews looked intense and epic. intriguing, but i thought a bit.... y'know? but then, considering japan is the only market that'd really figure out the errors, was this a wise business decision. storytelling aloud, in a book, and on film are wholly different crafts. some things don't translate well from one medium to another.

[LostinVA]

2. No, I figured out the errors just from the trailers

I grew up with scads of japanese-Americans, and just the casting of the Chinese actresses blew my mind -- there is such a physical difference in how Chinese and Japanese people look. I have Japanese friends and know a decent amount about Japanese history... and the mistakes are glaring. They are also glaring to the many, many people who read the book.

Oi. What a disappointment. This could have been such a good movie...

[cleofus1]

3. pure hollywood fantasy

it's one movie i'll never see...hollywood has no respect for culture or historical accuracy...michelle yeoh...and zhang ziyi...both talented and beautiful are never the less not japanese...and that kind of ruins it for me...

[tjdee]

7. Should Ben Kingsley not have played Gandhi? Vivien Leigh not played

Scarlett?

Michelle Yeoh made an excellent point about this...there are very good performances that aren't historically accurate ones.

Though, it can be scary (Mickey Rooney, Breakfast at Tiffany's).

I think it's pretty obvious that they cast Chinese women because Americans don't know any Japanese actresses. Hollywood as usual is about making a buck.

And Zhang Ziyi is tremendous in this role, I've heard.

[Rabrrrrrr]

14. Yes, this attitude really pisses me off, too

We had a thread on this a few weeks ago, and I offered the suggestion to the bellyachers and the fucking whiners who insist that characters should be played by a race that their character is, to then take it to its logical extreme: no one but a Moor - a true Moor - gets to play Othello. Anywhere, on any stage in the world. Even if it's a Japanese high school production of Othello, Othello has to be played by a Moor. And the rest of them by English and Spaniards. And then... WHOOPS! Looks like Japanese schools can't do Othello. Or any Shakespeare.

I wonder if the bellyachers and idiot complainers would bitch about the AMAZING Japanese production of Macbeth I saw a couple years ago, set in a quasi-Japanese setting.

And let's also remember, if we're gonna be purists, that Hamlet can only be played a Dane. And we have to make sure to get a Dane who's the right age.

I then asked the bellyacher if she was willing to set up the foundation that would be necessary to train enough Moors to play Othello so that every fucking theater in the world could have a real one when they stage it.

And this also means, of course, that Moorish women basically get nothing, unless there are any Moor-specific plays in existence. And these guys trained to play Othello? They'll never get to play anything else.

Oh, and for the purist idiots, good luck trying to do any kind of movie about ancient Rome or Greece or Persia; ain't any of the pure bloods left. Who's gonna play Julius Caesar? Titus Andronicus? Ben Hur?

Oh, and no black school would be able to do Shakespeare or, for the most part, any play ever written 'cepting Porgy and Bess. Yeah, that'll really be great, telling the black folk that they's gots to write you'uns own stuff if'n y'all wants to per-form on that there stage, boy.

[tjdee]

15. I agree--except for one thing....

I am a black person as everyone knows, and it really would chap my ass if someone tried to tell me I couldn't do Shakespeare. A friend of mine told me she was irritated that in the newest tv version of Annie, Daddy Warbuck's secretary was black, and that wouldn't have happened. I think I about exploded (I mean, no one says a bad word about Audra McDonald in front of me!). I love Orson Welles and his Othello playin' self.

However, sometimes I have a problem with white actors playing some roles because the talent was available and underused (this is not as big of a problem as it used to be). I take it back, it's not so much a "I hate white actors getting certain parts" as it is a "why don't nonwhite actors get the same opportunities in Hollywood, damn they can't catch a break even when the part calls for nonwhite people!"

In general, I think most roles should be available to all people, and the best person should be cast.

All of that said--I think an all white "Porgy and Bess" would be interesting to say the least.

[democracyindanger]

20. Ben Kingsley's ancestors are from the same village as Gandhi's

And there was some general pissing and moaning about Jude Law and Nicole Kidman snagging the lead roles in "Cold Mountain."

But, you're right--it comes down to performances. And every time the native Chinese-speaking actresses speak English in kinda-sorta-not-really-Japanese accents, the performances get worse.

[regnaD kciN]

23. Also...

...his real name is Krishna Bhanji. Just because he was born in England doesn't mean he's a WASP.

[KitchenWitch]

4. Yeah, it is kind of like casting Ed Harris to play Martin Luther King

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. More like casting a Somali to play Martin Luther King

The skin color and hair texture would be right, but the facial features would be all wrong.

[Celeborn Skywalker]

6. Question

Are the differences in Japanese and Chinese facial features similar to the differences in Northern and Southern Europeans or is there a more pronounced difference?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

21. It's hard to describe the difference, which I couldn't see until I

lived in Japan as a student and attended a school where most of the other foreign students were from Hong Kong and Taiwan. (China didn't allow students to study abroad at the time.) When I saw my Chinese friends in a Japanese crowd, many (not all) of them stood out.

I guess the best way to put it is that certain facial structures are more typical of one country than another. Sometimes you can't tell, but other times you look at a person and just KNOW which ethnicity they are.

I can usually tell if someone has a lot of Scandinavian ancestry (I'm half Norwegian and from Minnesota), and my mother, whose father was prominent in the Latvian community, can spot Latvians in a crowd.

[AllegroRondo]

25. I found the same things when I lived in Korea

After a while, my brain just go used to how Korean faces looked. Occasionally, someone would just look not quite right. If a Korean freind was nearby, I would ask and usually they would say, "Yes, they are from Japan", or "from Hong Kong".

[LostinVA]

32. There is a very distinct difference

Both facially and bodily (I know that's not used right, but you know what I mean!). And their accents are soooo different when they speak English.

[LostinVA]

31. VERY good analogy!

[deadparrot]

8. It's a shame so many people are disappointed.

It's really a fantastic book.

[tjdee]

10. Americans won't be.

No one ever went poor understimating Americans, LOL. Many Americans don't see a difference between Japanese/Chinese/Korean/Vietnamese, and many Americans liked the book. I'm sure it'll be a hit.

[LostinVA]

33. The book si great, the movie is not.

[tjdee]

9. I've read some Chinese are furious about their actresses playing

Japanese as well. There is some *really* bad blood there I am not aware of. The South Korean actress in "Lost" was approached for a role and she turned it down due to nationalistic reasons.

I read a Chinese guy saying something along the lines of "Chinese women have been servicing Japanese for years, this movie is no different".

[Shakespeare]

11. The bad blood is what the Japanese did to the Chinese during WWII

And particularly what they did to Chinese women during WWII. :cry:

[tjdee]

12. I'm going to have to read up on that.

I saw a movie...can't remember it now, and one of the subplots was about the Japanese occupation.

Seemed kind of silly to me at the time, Japan's this little island and China was this huge country...but then, think of the UK, after all.

:shrug:

Do the Japanese folks pretend nothing happened? Or...what is their general feeling on that time? What do they have to say about it?

[CatBoreal]

13. Basically the Japanese gloss over the entire thing...

Pick up The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang for a bit of background.

Japanese atrocities towards the Chinese and Koreans were pretty horrific pre-WWII.

The hatred runs deep to this day.

[LostinVA]

35. Read Iris Chang's book on Nanking

[LostinVA]

36. They don't teach about it

Their textbooks either ignore it, or act like they were helping the Chinese, Koreans, etc. Unlike the Germans, they refuse to even acknowledge what happened.

My Japanese friends didn';t learn about it until they cam eto the US... and these are people with advanced HISTORY degrees.

[LostinVA]

34. Rape of Nanking, Shanghai, Hopei, etc.

[oneighty]

16. And yet

A young Japanese soldier serving in the occupation of China writes;

What a night in China
What a night in China
There was this girl in the rain
The rouge on her cheeks
Like flowers were in bloom
Forever, I will remember
Even after we are separated
Ah, China night. A dream night.

The poem later set to music becomes a great love song in Japan.

'Shina no yoru' (China Nights)

The Japanese I knew years ago were very romantic. Many were innocent warriors as were many Americans.

Innocent romantics everywhere do fall in love.

For what it is worth.

180

[eyepaddle]

17. The Pacific Theatre of World War II

is an area of great historcal interest to me. The Japanese militarists (mainly generals in the Imperial Army with the aquiescence of the Imperial Navy) viewed China as basically THEIRS--except for it being occupied by divided and inferior Chinese bandits. They had had quite a while to crush Korea to their will and used Korea as both a food supply and a base for conquering China.

The Japanese were VERY serious opponents, harsh occupiers who also happened to be enraged at resistance. The most famous incident being the Rape of Nanking, the Chinese put up a very determined defense and when the city finally fell it was subjected to a six week long orgy of rape and murder and pillaging as payback; hundreds of thousnads of Chinese died. There are many other examples of such behaviour, although not to that extent.

After that incident the Imperial Army institued the "Women's Voluntary Service Corps" to reduce the incidence of rape. The number of women forced into the "voluntary" corps (aka the comfort women) numbered more than 100,000 of which 80% were Korean, the rest being Chinese, Fillipino, Dutch and even Japanese. Conditions for the comfort women ranged from poor to atrocious.

The Chinese are very polite and patient, but they have a VERRRRRYYYYYY long view of history, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see this issue affect Sino-Japanese relations far into the future, with the Koreans not about to let this go either.

My source for these numbers is The Pacific War Encylopedia, Dunnigan & Nofi. It isn't a flawless work (mainly in details related to equipment) but it is a very quick read and covers way more territory, much more effectively than any one volume, highly readable source should!

[Rabrrrrrr]

19. Yes, mix together the Chinese LOOOOOONNNNGGG view of history,

the Japanese arrogance and assurance of their own superiority that doesn't allow them to apologize for anything their country has done because as the superior race everything they do is automatically right and good, and mix in the extreme arrogance and "We are the master race" attitude of the Koreans, then toss in the cultural memories of the smaller Asian countries fucked by everyone else, and yes, SE Asia will be a long time suffering.

I'm always amazed at how a culture that gave us many of the highest and most beautiful art forms (Japanese) - architecture, gardens, ceramics, screen painting, haiku, other poetry, even the sound of the language and the movement of the body - also gave the world some of the most barbaric and awful atrocities, and could be so quick to kill, torture, rape, or otherwise debase themselves. And then, after the killing, go to the tatami mat and enjoy green tea and write poetry to make grown men cry.

Japan is fascinating.

[cleofus1]

22. the same could be said of america....

"I'm always amazed at how a culture that gave us many of the highest and most beautiful art forms (Japanese) - architecture, gardens, ceramics, screen painting, haiku, other poetry, even the sound of the language and the movement of the body - also gave the world some of the most barbaric and awful atrocities, and could be so quick to kill, torture, rape, or otherwise debase themselves. And then, after the killing, go to the tatami mat and enjoy green tea and write poetry to make grown men cry."


i lived in japan for 3 years and have a great deal of affection for it...so my judgement may be clouded by that...i am ambivilant about different races of actors/actresses portraying other races on screen...john wayne as genghis khan or charlton heston as the mexican in "touch of evil" come to mind as mildly offensive...i really cannot think of a "great performance" by a white person of an indian or a mexican...perhaps eli wallach as the mexican in "the good the bad and the ugly"...everyone's taste differs...but in this specific case...i personally may enjoy these actresses performances...but for me the sight of chinese actresses portraying japanese women is just too jarring...maybe some people can't tell the difference...to some...they all look alike...but not to me...it's just my individual tastes...being exposed to the culture as i was made me appreciate the people of japan...and another hollywood knockoff...without respect to the women of japan or the culture is not worth watching...hell i can't even watch the old cowboy movies with the white men with dark makeup portraying natives...maybe i'm just too sensitive...yup...that's me...mr. sensitive...

[AngryAmish]

24. Relax, its art

If you don't want to see it, fine. I don't think you will be forced to watch it "Clockwork Orange"-style. However, it is kinda like a person who is familiar with Roman history not watching "Gladiator" because it was historically inaccurate.

[cleofus1]

26. sorry

i apoligize...i didn't say you should not see it...never did i say that...i said i would not see it...with caveats and reasons...so you relax! yeah you! hey i'm talking to you...soooo relax! angry amish!

seriousley...i thought my post was thoughtful and reasoned...with insight from a minority group who has often been portrayed by white people...i don't feel angry...nor am i excited...so i don't understand the response...

i know no one will force me to watch this...i'm not stupid or deluded...
and you are wrong about someone with a background in history...ah heck...now you have me rambling...

hey all i said was that i was not going to watch the movie...essentially i agree with the article that the link above leads to...i guess i shouldn't have voiced my opinion...apparently some people here take this very seriousley...

[Rabrrrrrr]

30. Movies have helped to kill some of our imgination, I think

On radio, it didn't matter who played a role, because we couldn't see them.

And even on stage in a live performance it's easier, because one isn't really close enough to see the players well (excepting the first few rows).

But as movies have become more realistic with their special effects, and we have closeups, etc., people are losing their ability to suspend disbelief, and so now we have this push from certain people who will only accept racial and ethnically pure role/actor matchups.

And I find that very sad.

Welles played an amazing Othello. Randall Duk Kim played an amazing Hamlet. Alec Guiness played, I thought, a fantastic sheik in Lawrence of Arabia. I see no reason why Bollywood couldn't do a movie about the American west and cast only Indians in it - I would raise no objection to that at all. A Hindu Jesse James? Why not? Why should it matter?

But some are more interested in the visual aspect, other than the acting/role aspect or the quality of the story-telling, which is what is the IMPORTANT factor in a movie.

And I blame movies - which are essentially a visual-only medium - for that.

[Aristus]

37. Yeah, I'm a nut on Ancient Rome, and I LOVED "Gladiator".

Okay, I said to myself throughout the film: "that's wrong...and that's wrong...and THAT'S wrong..." but I still loved the movie. I got it on DVD, too.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

28. All of my Asian friends have told me that Asian-on-Asian racism

Is far and away the worst on the planet.

There's a LOT of bad blood between all of those countries.

[cleofus1]

29. well i agree to a point...

but the lynching of blacks in the old south and the holocaust for jews in europe and the genocide of native americans certainly deserve honorable mention...

[Metta]

18. Rather like a theme park with some good acting.

That saves me a trip to the theater. I'm sure I'll catch it on cable in six months.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

27. Not the least bit surprising.