dochira wrote:

I would pay money to see Teddie infiltrate the Germans.

great choice of words!

this is random but i just looked up gong li online because she looks soo much like my cousin, haha, and i found out that she's 40 years old!! wow... she does not look 40 at all... especially not in geisha... then again geisha calls for lots of heavy makeup.. but still! she's such a beauty...

michelle yeoh is even older at 43... she does NOT look 43... geez... craziness...
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I saw this film yesterday...absolutely amazing...i was hooked all the way to the end.
I thought Hasumomo was Kyoki? she sure did look like her
and the guy who Sayuri falls in love with is also a japanese actor.

Watanabe Ken.

sawadasmile wrote:

this is random but i just looked up gong li online because she looks soo much like my cousin, haha, and i found out that she's 40 years old!! wow... she does not look 40 at all... especially not in geisha... then again geisha calls for lots of heavy makeup.. but still! she's such a beauty... michelle yeoh is even older at 43... she does NOT look 43...

...or look like a geisha...or japanese....funny how that's the case in a movie about japanese culture that just so happens to still being doing miserable at the box office?

Tu_triky wrote:

...or look like a geisha...or japanese....funny how that's the case in a movie about japanese culture that just so happens to still being doing miserable at the box office?

this is true. i hated how it became a movie all about the jealousy, backstabbing, etc. that goes on in geishas' lives. even tho the book obviously has lots of that, thats not ALL it is about... it seems they jus took the parts of the book that would carry the story to the end- and thus left out the very few parts of japanese culture that there were... sigh. eh. well i guess its what i expected anyway -_-;;
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love jin & kimutaku. <3

sawadasmile wrote:

this is true. i hated how it became a movie all about the jealousy, backstabbing, etc. that goes on in geishas' lives. even tho the book obviously has lots of that, thats not ALL it is about... it seems they jus took the parts of the book that would carry the story to the end- and thus left out the very few parts of japanese culture that there were... sigh. eh. well i guess its what i expected anyway -_-;;

they turned it into an episode of sweet valley high

Okay...I have read/skimmed this whole thread and still feel the need to rant...

I object to the casting of the Geisha primarily because Geisha are a cultural icon. They define the Japanese aesthetic in many ways. While the actresses cast are good actresses in their own rights they don't move, sound, or look Japanese. For example, I have seen production shots wherein Zang Zi Yi and Michelle Yeoh are walking along the street in kimono inappropriate to their station. (no maiko shoes, no geta, their hair isn't done, their kimono are much too informal (not enough layers), they aren't in make-up, etc...) They are walking with their feet turned out and they are walking heel-toe. No self respecting Geisha would be caught dead walking that way. It makes your stride clunky and your kimono will flap open. It's one of the basics in Odori.

I also object to the casting because they held auditions in LA, NY, and all over Japan and still couldn't find any Japanese or Japanese-American actresses who they felt could bring the characters to life. Are they blind? I guess I can assume they are blind because it took them over 3 weeks to get 300 extras together for a 3 day shoot for Last Samurai because they couldn't find anyone who was Japanese or Japanese-American in LA.

Do you think maybe they thought it would be easier to hire speech coaches to teach the Chinese actresses how to speak English with a japanese accent than it would be to teach the Japanese to speak English? You can skip a whole step. The Japanese accent comes built in when you hire Japanese actresses...

I really don't get it because they could do it back in 1956 when they filmed Teahouse of the August Moon. Sure Marlon Brando played a Japanese guy, but all of the other Japanese characters were played by Japanese people. All of the Japanese and cultural situations were correct, minus some minor goofyness w/regards to names. The woman who played the Geisha (with the ridiculous name of Lotus Blossom) was a respected Odori sensei.

I think the movie will be cinematically beautiful. I will probably go see it because I feel bad complaining about something I haven't even seen. I did the same with Last Samurai and was pleasantly surprised. But I think that it was the fact that Japanese actors were playing Japanese roles that saved the movie for me. The actors were true to their ideas of samurai and women and generals and soldiers and the turmoil that their country was going through, is still going through, trying to reconcile their own unique culture with that of outsiders.

If Memoirs didn't deal with something as iconic as Geisha I wouldn't have as much of a problem. If even one of the three main Geisha were being portrayed by a Japanese or Japanese-American actress I wouldn't have as much of a problem. I guess I should say that I didn't like the book either. It was highly innacurate, but there are many books in which I can overlook innacuracies. I guess I didn't really like the characters very much. I preferred reading Liza Dalby's Geisha and other accounts from actual geisha to the fictitious geisha in Memoirs. And I don't like the author because I heard an interview where he said that none of the characters in the book had any redeeming qualities. I mean, what kind of author writes a book full of people he doesn't like?

End of rant...for now

Casting Japanese performers from Japan may be debatable, but I wonder why Tamlyn Tomita isn't in the film. She pretty much a leading Japanese-American actress, isn't she? She would've made a great Hatsumomo.

Btw, thank you for telling me how to use the quote devise. May I test? Thanks!

Quote:

test

to all those critical of this film production...it's already a dead issue in the united states...it's getting no press, it's barely even on the media's radar screen, if at all, anymore...this movie is a commerical and creative flop.

sony pictures made a series of stupid missteps with regard to this film and the lack of attention, in the popular press and at the box office, is an obvious consequence.

sarujin wrote:

Okay...I have read/skimmed this whole thread and still feel the need to rant... I object to the casting of the Geisha primarily because Geisha are a cultural icon. They define the Japanese aesthetic in many ways. While the actresses cast are good actresses in their own rights they don't move, sound, or look Japanese. For example, I have seen production shots wherein Zang Zi Yi and Michelle Yeoh are walking along the street in kimono inappropriate to their station. (no maiko shoes, no geta, their hair isn't done, their kimono are much too informal (not enough layers), they aren't in make-up, etc...) They are walking with their feet turned out and they are walking heel-toe. No self respecting Geisha would be caught dead walking that way. It makes your stride clunky and your kimono will flap open. It's one of the basics in Odori. End of rant...for now

I AGREE 100% I wasn't sure if it was just me, but it seems as though they did NOT give these actresses enough actual subjects to study! I feel like the costume directors and director himself should have walked incognito around Kyoto or something...I am no expert on geisha or maiko, having seen them only a few times, but the actresses here act very loud, wear very little, and walk too wide for kimono...

I was hoping a movie like this would help disprove myths about geisha, but it isn't so. Very few Japanese people who saw this movie think that it's even Japan--it's a made up country, they say, and for that reason alone entertaining.

I also think the accents were stupid. I couldn't understand it. If they were going to speak English, accents were a horrible road to travel. I thought we got over foreigners speaking with accents without subtitles in old war movies or movies about Germans? (I never understand why Hollywood did the things it did...)

yume wrote:

.... (I never understand why Hollywood did the things it did...)

because people in the "red" states will still watch it. especially if the americans are the heroes.

krim wrote:

because people in the "red" states will still watch it. especially if the americans are the heroes.

ppl in the red states don't take a liking to yellow skins...

Tu_triky wrote:

ppl in the red states don't take a liking to yellow skins...

not true, they're okay with the Chinese yellow man, because they make it possible to stock Walmart with uber-cheap goods. The Japanese yellow man is still hated because of that thing that happened a few years back.

krim wrote:

not true, they're okay with the Chinese yellow man, because they make it possible to stock Walmart with uber-cheap goods. The Japanese yellow man is still hated because of that thing that happened a few years back.

don't get me started man....

there are no such things as different shades of yellow, my friend.

the prevailing wisdom is if you're a yellow RED, you're better off dead.

red = communist

Tu_triky wrote:

don't get me started man.... there are no such things as different shades of yellow, my friend. the prevailing wisdom is if you're a yellow RED, you're better off dead. red = communist

Sorry to say, but Mao has Sam's testicles in hand... you can't really mess to much with the red chinese, because all they'd have to do is dump the couple hundred BILLION in bonds they hold and the value of the dollar would tumble. They're the ones supporting our deficit spending.

krim wrote:

Sorry to say, but Mao has Sam's testicles in hand... you can't really mess to much with the red chinese, because all they'd have to do is dump the couple hundred BILLION in bonds they hold and the value of the dollar would tumble. They're the ones supporting ur deficit spending.

it's okay we're masters at deficit spending....ol' man cheney would still be eating ho-ho's after the dollar tumbled into negative values....

respect for int'l politics or economics is not a prerequisite for this administration...but ho-ho's and quintiple by-pass surgeries are...

cheney will have died by that time...

and I dont want to be eating out of a trash can in a 1980's recession repeat.

krim wrote:

cheney will have died by that time... and I dont want to be eating out of a trash can in a 1980's recession repeat.

don't worry it'll be made in china....it might actually have some crispy spareribs in there, too.