Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)
Average Rating: 5.4/10
Reviews Counted: 158
Fresh: 56 | Rotten: 102
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.
Average Rating: 5.3/10
Critic Reviews: 39
Fresh: 12 | Rotten: 27
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.
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Average Rating: 3.7/5
User Ratings: 440,831
My Rating
Movie Info
This film, based on the novel by Arthur Golden, unfolds from the perspective of Chiyo (Zhang Ziyi), a girl who, at the age of nine, is sold to a geisha house in Kyoto in the early 1930s. Here, she learns that becoming a geisha can be the single path to wealth and independence for a woman. The head geisha of her house, however, Hatsumomo (Gong Li), is bitterly jealous of Chiyo and abuses her at every opportunity. Eventually Chiyo is taken under the wing of Hatsumomo's rival, Mameha (Michelle
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Cast
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Ziyi Zhang
Sayuri -
Ken Watanabe
The Chairman -
Michelle Yeoh
Mameha -
Koji Yakusho
Nobu -
Youki Kudoh
Pumpkin -
Kaori Momoi
Mother -
Tsai Chin
Auntie -
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa
The Baron -
Suzuka Ohgo
Chiyo -
Li Gong
Hatsumomo -
Randall Duk Kim
Dr. Crab -
Mako
Sakamoto -
Kenneth Tsang
The General -
Thomas Ikeda
Mr. Bekku -
Zoe Weizenbaum
Young Pumpkin -
Shizuko Hoshi
Sayuri Narrator -
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Memoirs of a Geisha Trailer & Photos
All Critics (173) | Top Critics (43) | Fresh (61) | Rotten (104) | DVD (24)
The subject remained interesting enough to this provincial American to accept and ultimately enjoy the film's well-worn romanticism, even with its resignedly tired happy ending.
Memoirs of a Geisha is everything you'd expect it to be: beautiful, mesmerizing, tasteful, Japanese. It's just not very hot.
Ultimately, Memoirs of a Geisha compares unfavorably with the book, though it offers pleasures of its own.
... a fascinating glimpse at a lost world of women with skin of porcelain and spines of steel, and the men in their thrall.
... the movie is a well-meaning, vaporous bore, enlivened only by occasional traces of Showgirls-style camp and plasticine tears trickling down impeccably powdered cheeks.
It is a lush, blushingly romantic portrait of Asian culture as seen through a Western lens.
Titanic fraudulence
It's lush, stylish and a feast for the eyes and ears rather than the heart and soul.
The screenplay was lacking, the characters not engaging, the story dragged on and no real insights on being a geisha. Paul Chambers, CNN.
Visually gorgeous, but slow-moving and not meant for kids.
Sayuri's journey was just interesting enough to make it enjoyable, but the visual style was the true marvel.
While there is a single disc version of this movie on DVD, the first and best release is a two-disc set.
Director Rob Marshall has a sophomore flop on his hands.
For all of its inaccuracies and over-the-top mise-en-scène, Memoirs is quite entertaining.
full review in Greek
The overall effect is not so unlike Mameha's description of geisha themselves: a moving work of art.
Audience Reviews for Memoirs of a Geisha
Super Reviewer
Marshall's strenght as a director is definetly his eye for details and images. He knows how to make his films look good. With great support from cinematographer Dion Beebe and John Myhre's production design, this film does look often stunning. Colleen Atwood's fantastic costume design also does wonders for the film's look. When it comes to beauty, this film certainly has it. But unfortunately as it goes that underneath the surface not many great looking film is that great when it comes to depth and characters. While Memoirs of a Geisha does give us some insight into this forbidden world, it still feels like it is more interested in the surface. This is quite possibly hardly even the half of the truth about lives of geishas and what they must have gone through.
Cast is overall quite a collection of stars with names like Michelle Yeoh, Gong Li, Ken Watanabe, Koji Yakusho and Ziyi Zhang in it. They all give good performances, especially Zhang as a young Sayuri. Still we have seen them in a better roles with richer characters. Memoirs of a Geisha is film entertaining enough to sit through. It is nothing special and it is overlong for sure, but there is something oddly hypnotic in it's mood and approach that keeps you glued to the screen.
Super Reviewer
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- Mameha: You cannot call yourself a true geisha until you can stop a man in his tracks with a single look.
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- Sayuri: Can't you see? Every step I have taken... since I was that little girl on the bridge... was to bring myself closer to you.
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- Sayuri: No geisha could never hope for more.
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- Sayuri: How could you?! You don't know what you have done!
- Pumpkin: But I do.
- Sayuri: I do not understand. Why did you have to bring the chairman?
- Pumpkin: Because I know how you feel about him. A long time ago, you took something from me. The only thing I ever truly wanted. Well, now you know how it feels.
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- Hatsumomo: My dear okasan. We will see, won't we?
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- Mother: I'm entitled to do as I choose.
- Hatsumomo: But you promised the okiya to Pumpkin!
- Mother: Look at her, still a virgin maiko. [Pumpkin gets up and runs off]
- Hatsumomo: Pumpkin! [Hatsumomo tries unsuccessfully to pull her back]
- Sayuri: Can't you adopt us both?
- Mother: Quiet Sayuri. Now I'm no fool. Pumpkin would only be Hatsumomo's puppet. How long will it take before you kick us out on the street.
- Hatsumomo: I have given you my life.
- Mother: Yes your impudence, your foul temper.
- Hatsumomo: Who paid for the silk on your back. The rice in your bowl. The tobacco in that pipe of your!? WHO?!
- Mother: Don't exaggerate! You have not even had a danna.
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Foreign Titles
- Die Geisha (DE)










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