Memoirs of a Geisha

US director, Chinese and Japanese big stars, narration of stories of Japanese glorious traditional artists—all these alone can entitle the English movie “Memoirs of a Geisha” to be a masterpiece and a splendid success. The moving movie relating life of an elegant Geisha is a 2005 film adaptation of the novel of the same name, produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment and Spyglass Entertainment and by Douglas Wick's Red Wagon Productions, and directed by Rob Marshall. Fascinating top stars such as Zhang Ziyi, Ken Watanabe, Gong Li and Michelle Yeoh dedicated fantastic acting and expressed the characters’ internal feelings vividly.

Displaying completely hardships in life, jealousy between women, destruction of World War, love and hatred, persistence and fortitude, beauty of Japanese traditional art Kabuki, Japanese unique culture, etc, this well-produced masterpiece has moved and entertained hundreds of thousands of people, including me.

The little girl with grey eyes, sold by her parents and taken in by the proprietress of a geisha house, determines to become a geisha so that she can one day become a part of the Chairman’s life, after he—who keeps helping her later in her life—buys her an iced sorbet and gives her his handkerchief when she is crying. She turns into Sayuri under another geisha’s tutelage and her astonishingly successful debut entitles her to the most famous geisha in Gion, Kyoto. Despite the hardship she has to endure as a Geisha such as the pains of walking with high shoes and tightly combing of her hair and strict practice, jealousy from other geishas interferes with her life, and World War destroys her and other geishas' peaceful geisha life. After all the sufferings, again back to geisha life, her persistence and intelligence finally lead her into Chairman’s life. However, “To a man, Geisha can only be a half wife. We are the wives of nightfall. And yet to learn of kindness, after so much unkindness... To understand that a little girl with more courage than she knew, would find that her prayers were answered...can that not be called happiness? After all, these are not the memoirs of an empress, nor of a queen. These are memoirs of another kind.” A little girl’s great efforts and persistence in growing into a charming geisha for love strike my heart, and yet at the same time “being only a half wife” sounds such a misfortune and even makes me feel slightly painful.

“We (Geishas) sell our skills, not our bodies. We create another secret world, a place only of beauty. The very word Geisha means artist and to be a geisha is to be judged as a moving work of art…Agony and beauty for us live side by side. Your feet will suffer, your fingers will bleed. Even sitting and sleeping will be painful.” Sayuri is taught so. This distinguished Kabuki, the Japanese unique art. With fabulous skills that are entertaining, appreciated by the audience, geishas have to suffer from great agony at the same time. This movie led me to get to know Japanese Kabuki, at which I was amazed and astonished.

With marvelous pictures, changeable plots and beautiful music, this piece “Memoirs of a Geisha” strikes its audience. The aesthetic end leaves me with aftertaste…

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