Memoirs of a Geisha

    Memoirs of a Geisha
    2005

    Synopsis

    In the years before World War II, a penniless Japanese child is torn from her family to work as a maid in a geisha house.

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    Cast

    • Zhang ZiyiSayuri
    • Gong LiHatsumomo
    • Michelle YeohMameha
    • Ken WatanabeChairman
    • Suzuka OhgoChiyo
    • Kaori MomoiMother
    • Koji YakushoNobu
    • Youki KudohPumpkin
    • Togo IgawaTanaka
    • MakoSakamoto

    Recommendations

    • 80

      The Hollywood Reporter

      Here is a film about Japan made by Americans, shot mostly in the U.S. and, of course, in English. Once you accept these compromises in the name of international filmmaking, none is a real deterrent to enjoying this lush period film.
    • 80

      Variety

      From a filmmaking point of view, this is a work that the old Hollywood moguls themselves would have been proud to present.
    • 75

      Rolling Stone

      Any doubts about three Chinese actresses speaking English with Japanese accents vanish in the face of their deeply felt performances and the world Marshall conjures with magical finesse.
    • 75

      ReelViews

      There's no doubting that Memoirs of a Geisha is a lush motion picture, and it has much to recommend it, but this will not go down as one of the great screen romances of the 2000s.
    • 70

      L.A. Weekly

      It's not a great movie, or even a particularly good one, but it's spectacular. No expense has been spared. The technical crew reads like a roll call of Oscar-night regulars.
    • 60

      The A.V. Club

      The film comes to life whenever the cartoonishly vindictive Gong throws a tantrum, but she played virtually the same role in Zhang Yimou's "Shanghai Triad," which presented a far more compelling rationale for her star fits. Without her, this expensive piece of backlot pageantry turns vivid history into an ossified tchotchke.
    • 58

      Entertainment Weekly

      Not since "Snow Falling on Cedars" have I seen so pedigreed a lit-pic sit there like such an inert teapot, available only to be admired for its mysterious, ineffable Asian teapotness.
    • 58

      Christian Science Monitor

      Beautiful geishas flit and whoosh through the equally beautiful scenery. Their kimonos are artworks-in-motion. So why is the film so boring? It could be because director Rob Marshall is so transfixed by all the ritualistic hoo-ha that he never brings the story down to earth.

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