A few years prior to the outbreak of World War II, a nine year old Japanese child is sold to a geisha house by her father. Chiyo (Suzuka Ohgo) spends her first six years serving the house’s venerable mother as a maid, while being frequently tormented by the house’s most prestigous geisha Hatsumomo (Gong Li), who is envious of Chiyo’s radiant water-blue eyes and afraid of what the girl could one day grow up to be. At the age of fifteen, Chiyo is taken under the tutelage of the experienced and graceful geisha Mameha (Michelle Yeoh) who renames her “Sayuri” and helps her blossom into the most sought after geisha in Japan. With this, the old rivalry between Sayuri and Hatsumomo increases, and Sayuri soon learns that being a geisha leaves no room for one’s own desires.

The decision of Rob Marshall (who’s previous film Chicago won six Academy Awards including that for Best Picture) to direct the screen adaptation of Arthur Golden’s international bestseller Memoirs of a Geisha yielded quite a few controversies. For one, the film was going to be spoken entirely in english, and on top of that, the Japanese characters were to be played by an assembly of China’s most prominent actors. Zhang Ziyi portrays the adult version of Chiyo, Sayuri. She is accompanied by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon counterpart Michelle Yeoh as her instructor Mameha, while Gong Li (The Emperor and the Assassin, Raise the Red Lantern) and Ken Watanabe (the only Japanese amongst the main cast, previously seen in Batman Begins and The Last Samurai) interpret the roles of Hatsumomo and the Chairman (Sayuri’s love interest) respectively.

The acting performances are strong throughout, with two actresses standing out in particular. Zhang Ziyi, who seems to have appeared in nearly every Asian or Asia-set film released in Western cinemas since Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, is finally finding recognition for her acting talent. The twenty-six year old actress deservedly made the cut on several of this season’s Best Actress lists, including nominations at the Golden Globes and BAFTAs. Ziyi’s forté is her ability to pull of adorable grace followed by insecure naivity in the space of a few seconds, and her performance might well land Ziyi her first Oscar nomination. Equally stunning is Gong Li, in some ways Ziyi’s predecessor in defining modern Chinese cinema outside of Asia. Li thrives on Hatsumomo’s false pride, manipulative mind and deceitful intentions, and her character’s story arc is, at times, far more riveting than that of Sayuri.

Unfortunately, the film’s plot development fails to hold up with the quality of the cast’s performances. Marshall’s directing approach nearly degrades the material to a conventional epic romance - Sayuri’s story is that of the underdog going through pain and coming out on top, and you can’t help but wish he might have explored the ugly side of the geisha world more deeply aswell. The highest creed of geishadom is that they sell their companionship, their artfulness (the film makes it clear that geishas sought to be regarded as walking artworks), but not their flesh. In truth, geisha’s are also part of the sex trade, they’re most coveted possession, their “mizuyage” (virginity) is quite literally put up for auction. The amount paid by the highest bidder goes on to define the status of the geisha, and needless to say Sayuri sets a new record. The filthiness and hypocrisy behind this concept is almost forcefully ignored in the film, though how much of that problem stems from Golden’s book I do not know, having not read it myself.

Marshall’s inexperience as a high-profile director further manifests itself in the film’s agonizing pacing, Marshall’s approach lacks the intensity that could sustain the movie’s length. This is made even worse through some very choppy editing, which in turn is responsible for a generally unbalanced character exposition and development: some scenes are lingered on for far too long, while important characters such as the Chairman and Mameha remain sketchy throughout the film. Another misgiving factor that cannot be ignored is how much the film’s credibility suffers from the english accents. I’d like to say that why the studios didn’t have an Asian director doing an authentic Japanese version of the film is beyond me, but I strongly suspect it has more than a little to do with the film’s investors wanting to bank on as much cash as possible.

In spite of the previous two paragraphs, Memoirs of a Geisha does have considerable strengths. The camera work is impressive, capturing beautiful shots of the amazing sets or subtly playing with light flickers and shadows in interior surroundings. The intricate geisha kimonos by costume designer Colleen Atwood (a lady who seems to win the costume design Oscar every other year) and the make-up work perfectly complement the movie’s lush visuals. Together with John Williams’ superb score (Yo Yo Ma’s breathtaking cello arrangements deserve much credit here), and the astonishing acting performances, these are the main reasons why, despite its pacing flaws, Memoirs of a Geisha is well worth seeing, especially on the big screen.

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