Memoirs of a Geisha (film)

Shortly after the book's release in 1997, the filming rights to the book were purchased for $1 million by Red Wagon's Douglas Wick and Lucy Fisher, backed by Columbia Pictures. The following year, Steven Spielberg planned to make Memoirs of a Geisha as the follow-up to Saving Private Ryan, bringing in his company DreamWorks. Speilberg's Dreamworks partner David Geffen attempted to persuade him not to take the project, feeling it was "not good enough for him".[4] Prior to Spielberg's involvement, the film was planned to be shot in Japan in the Japanese language.[5] By 2002, with Spielberg having postponed production for A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Minority Report and Catch Me If You Can, Spielberg stepped down from directorial duties to only produce.

Both Wick and Fisher approached Rob Marshall, who was interested in doing a non-musical after Annie and Chicago. This brought a third company into Memoirs of a Geisha, as Marshall was still signed to release his next film through Chicago distributors Miramax.[6][7]

The three leading non-Japanese actresses, including Ziyi Zhang, Gong Li, and Michelle Yeoh, were put through "geisha boot camp" before production commenced, during which they were trained in traditional geisha practices of Japanese music, dance, and tea ceremony. Anthropologist Liza Dalby was also brought in to aid in the production as an advisor,[8] though she later commented that "while the director and producers often asked my opinion on things, most of the time they went ahead and followed their own vision", calling the film a "wasted opportunity" to display geisha society accurately.

The orange gateways at the Fushimi Inari shrine in Fushimi-ku, Kyoto, used in the scene where a young Chiyo runs through them

Production of the film took place from September 29, 2004 to January 31, 2005. It was decided that contemporary Japan looked too modern for a story set in pre- and post-war Japan, meaning that many scenes were filmed on cost-effective soundstages or on location in the United States, primarily California. The majority of the film was shot on a large set built on a ranch in Thousand Oaks, California.[9] Most interior scenes were filmed in Culver City, California at the Sony Pictures Studios lot. Other locations in California included San Francisco, Moss Beach, Descanso Gardens in La Cañada Flintridge, Sacramento, Yamashiro's Restaurant in Hollywood, the Japanese Gardens at the Huntington Library and Gardens in San Marino, Hakone Gardens in Saratoga, and Downtown Los Angeles at the Belasco Theater on Hill Street. Towards the end of production, some scenes were shot in Kyoto, including the Fushimi Inari-Taisha, the head shrine of Inari, located in Fushimi-ku, Kyoto.

One of the tasks faced by sound editors in post-production was improving the English pronunciation of the cast, which in part involved piecing together different dialogue clips from other segments of the film to form missing syllables in the actors' speech, as some only spoke partially phonetic English when performing. The achievement of the sound editors earned the film an Academy Award nomination for Best Achievement in Sound Editing.

Memoirs of a Geisha received mixed reviews from Western critics. Illinois' Daily Herald said that the "[s]trong acting, meticulously created sets, beautiful visuals, and a compelling story of a celebrity who can't have the one thing she really wants make Geisha memorable".[10] The Washington Times called the film "a sumptuously faithful and evocative adaption" while adding that "[c]ontrasting dialects may remain a minor nuisance for some spectators, but the movie can presumably count on the pictorial curiosity of readers who enjoyed Mr. Golden's sense of immersion, both harrowing and [a]esthetic, in the culture of a geisha upbringing in the years that culminated in World War II".[11]

The film scored a 35% "Rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 164 reviews, and an average rating of 5.37/10; the consensus stated "Less nuanced than its source material, Memoirs of a Geisha may be a lavish production, but it still carries the simplistic air of a soap opera."[12] On Metacritic, the film was given a 54/100, based on 38 critics, meaning "mixed or average review."[13]

In the United States, the film managed $57 million during its box office run. The film was facing off against King Kong, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Fun with Dick and Jane. During its first week in limited release, the film screening in only eight theaters tallied up an $85,313 per theater average which made it second in highest per theater averages behind Brokeback Mountain for 2005. International gross reached $158 million.[14]

The New Statesman criticized Memoirs of a Geisha's plot, saying that after Hatsumomo leaves, "the plot loses what little momentum it had and breaks down into one pretty visual after another" and says that the film version "abandons the original's scholarly mien to reveal the soap opera bubbling below".[15] The Journal praised Ziyi Zhang, saying that she "exudes a heartbreaking innocence and vulnerablity" but said "too much of the character's yearning and despair is concealed behind the mask of white powder and rouge".[16] London's The Evening Standard compared Memoirs of a Geisha to Cinderella and praised Gong Li, saying that "Li may be playing the loser of the piece but she saves this film" and Gong "endows Hatsumomo with genuine mystery".[17] Eighteen days later, The Evening Standard put Memoirs of a Geisha on its Top Ten Films list.[18] Glasgow's Daily Record praised the film, saying the "geisha world is drawn with such intimate detail that it seems timeless until the war, and with it the modern world comes crashing in".[19]

Controversy arose due to the casting of the film, with all three main female roles going to non-Japanese actresses. Ziyi Zhang (Sayuri) and Gong Li (Hatsumomo) both held Chinese citizenship at the time of the film's production (Gong Li became a naturalised Singaporean from 2008 onwards), whereas Michelle Yeoh (Mameha) is an ethnic Chinese from Malaysia. All three were already prominent actors in Chinese cinema. The film's producers defended the position, stating that the main priorities in casting the three main roles were "acting ability and star power". Director Rob Marshall noted examples such as the Mexican actor Anthony Quinn being cast as a Greek man in Zorba the Greek.[20]

Opinion of the casting in the Asian community was mixed, with some finding the casting of Chinese actresses for Japanese roles offensive in the face of Japan's wartime atrocities in China and mainland Asia. The Chinese government canceled the film's release because of such connections, and a website denounced star Ziyi Zhang as an "embarrassment to China."[21] This was exacerbated by the word "geigi" (芸妓), a Japanese name for geisha used in the Kantō region, which includes Tokyo. The second character (妓) could sometimes mean "prostitute" in Japanese language, though it actually had a variety of meanings, and there was a clear distinction between geisha and prostitutes which were called "Yūjo" (遊女). The character 妓 only means "prostitute" in Chinese, and the correct translation into Chinese of the word "geisha" is 艺伎 (traditional Chinese: 藝伎), which does not use it.

In Japan, reception to the film was mixed. Some Japanese expressed offence at the three main female roles being played by Chinese actors; others took issue with the portrayal of geisha in the film, deeming it inaccurate and Westernised.[22] Japanese cultural expert Peter MacIntosh, who had advised on the film, expressed concern that it had not been made specifically for a Japanese audience, and that anyone knowledgeable about Japanese culture who saw the film would be "appalled".[23] The film garnered only average box office success in Japan, despite being a high budget film about Japanese culture.[24]

Other Asians defended the casting, including the film's main Japanese star Ken Watanabe, who said that "talent is more important than nationality."[25] In defense of the film, Zhang said:

A director is only interested in casting someone he believes is appropriate for a role...regardless of whether someone is Japanese or Chinese or Korean, we all would have had to learn what it is to be a geisha, because almost nobody today knows what that means—not even the Japanese actors on the film. Geisha was not meant to be a documentary. I remember seeing in the Chinese newspaper a piece that said we had only spent six weeks to learn everything and that that was not respectful toward the culture. It's like saying that if you're playing a mugger, you have to rob a certain number of people. To my mind, what this issue is all about, though, is the intense historical problems between China and Japan. The whole subject is a land mine. Maybe one of the reasons people made such a fuss about Geisha was that they were looking for a way to vent their anger.[26]

Film critic Roger Ebert pointed out that the film was made by a Japanese-owned company, and that Gong Li and Ziyi Zhang outgrossed any Japanese actress even in the Japanese box office.[27]

The film received occasionally hostile responses in Mainland China, with the film being censored and banned by the People's Republic of China. Relations between Japan and Mainland China at the time of the film's release had been particularly tense, owing to the then-Prime Minister of Japan, Junichiro Koizumi, having paid a number of visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine - a shrine specially dedicated to honoring Japan's war dead, including those convicted of war crimes. These visits were denounced by China's foreign ministry as having honored war criminals whose crimes pertained to Japan's actions in China in WW2 specifically. China had also prevented Japan from receiving a seat on the United Nations Security Council in the year of the film's release.[28]

The film's setting of the 1920s and 1940s covers both World War II and the Second Sino-Japanese War, during which a time Japan captured and forced thousands of Korean and Chinese women into sexual slavery known as "comfort women" for Japanese military personnel.[29] Various newspapers such as the Shanghai-based Oriental Morning Post and the Shanghai Youth Daily expressed fears that the film could be banned by censors, with concerns that the casting of Chinese actresses as geisha could create anti-Japanese sentiment, and stir up resentment surrounding Japan's wartime actions in China - in particular, the use of Chinese women as sex slaves for Japan's occupying forces.[30][31] A different controversy rose with the mentioning of a Japanese soldier that had fought in Manchuria, China, as the geisha introducing the soldier referred to him as a "war hero" in the film.

The film had been originally scheduled to be shown within Mainland China on February 9, 2006; however, the Chinese State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television decided to ban the film on February 1, 2006, considering the film "too sensitive" for release, a decision that overturned the film's approval for screening in November.[32]