another life blog

Unfortunately, I got to the theater late, and missed the first 5 minutes of Papa selling off little Chiyo and her sister to geisha trader. In any case…

I don’t exactly recall when I first read Memoirs of a Geisha ~ but it was long enough ago that I forgotten most of the details. One important thing I do recall, is that I had thought it as a non-fiction when I first started reading, and when I came to the realization the story is too improbable and perfectly organized to be real, I put it down for a week before finishing it. The movie interpretation of Memoirs ~ as pretty as cinematography and the characters were - made the already over-the-top novel worse with various cuts, and the choice of spoken languages.

One of the first thing that people notice about the film, is probably the beautiful settings of Japan. Cherry blossoms, lushes mountains, beautiful streams, and historical buildsings ~ eye candies that fill one with desire to move there… perhaps even into apartments the size of my bathroom. Japan is beautiful, especially the country sides - though I never been, I’d sure like to =) Maybe over the summer before dental school starts ~ I can visit Mikey!

Ah, Saiyuri ~ chosen for her looks and fame. As most know, she ain’t Japanese… hell, most of the main casts are Chinese! The lack of boobage is rather discouraging - but it’s okay! Sayuri certainly makes for a beautiful geisha. the looks she gives while doing the battle dance, literally took my breath away. Hauntingly exotic. Most of the other girls, maybe except for Hatsumomo, are kinda fugly, but that’s okay =)

Now, the story cuts. Saiyuri’s training took place in all of 5 minutes. The different arcs/stages of Saiyuri’s development, the war, the aftermath, etc, etc… all cut pretty short to make the story fit well. I kinda wish instead of shortening it all and make the story almost nonsensical, they should’ve rewrite to fit the story into big screen better. Whatever… I did get excited at one point of the story, when Saiyuri was fighting Hatsumomo ~ I thought… “Saiyuri! Do the crouchin tiger, hidden dragon punch!”

My biggest gripe about the movie though, is the languages spoken. What the hell were they thinking, sticking in random Japanese words into the story, then having them all speak English?! The intro was all in Japanese, but then bam, English. They all speaks English well, that’s for sure ~ but why would they put in random arigatou, suimasen, konnichiwa, onegai, … whatnots in? To keep a sense of Japanesessy? If they only did the whole thing in Japanese, and subtitled it ~ I would’ve liked it better. Heh.

Well, no matter what, as Linda said, movie adaptations usually fail due to time constraints, poor screenwriting, and the inability to read what the characters are thinking. And I think so too, still - Geisha could be better.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 6th, 2006 at 2:22 am and is filed under Movies and Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.