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Memoirs of a Geisha Play Trailer

Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)

tomatometer

35

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.

31

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.

audience

82

liked it
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

PG-13,

Drama, Romance

Robin Swicord, Doug Wright

Mar 28, 2006

$57.0M

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Memoirs of a Geisha Trailer & Photos

Critic Reviews for Memoirs of a Geisha

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.

January 18, 2006
Andrew Sarris
New York Observer
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Memoirs of a Geisha is everything you'd expect it to be: beautiful, mesmerizing, tasteful, Japanese. It's just not very hot.

December 27, 2005 Full Review Source: Washington Post
Stephen Hunter
Washington Post
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Ultimately, Memoirs of a Geisha compares unfavorably with the book, though it offers pleasures of its own.

December 27, 2005 Full Review Source: Seattle Times
Moira MacDonald
Seattle Times
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... a fascinating glimpse at a lost world of women with skin of porcelain and spines of steel, and the men in their thrall.

December 27, 2005 Full Review Source: Orlando Sentinel
Roger Moore
Orlando Sentinel
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... 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.

December 27, 2005 Full Review Source: Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
Miami Herald
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It is a lush, blushingly romantic portrait of Asian culture as seen through a Western lens.

December 27, 2005 Full Review Source: Houston Chronicle
Amy Biancolli
Houston Chronicle
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Titanic fraudulence

August 30, 2009 Full Review Source: CinePassion | Comment (1)
Fernando F. Croce
CinePassion

It's lush, stylish and a feast for the eyes and ears rather than the heart and soul.

July 30, 2009 Full Review Source: Screenwize
Simon Weaving
Screenwize

The screenplay was lacking, the characters not engaging, the story dragged on and no real insights on being a geisha. Paul Chambers, CNN.

July 29, 2009 Full Review Source: CNNRadio | Comment (1)
Paul Chambers
CNNRadio

Visually gorgeous, but slow-moving and not meant for kids.

July 10, 2008 Full Review Source: Common Sense Media
Cynthia Fuchs
Common Sense Media

Sayuri's journey was just interesting enough to make it enjoyable, but the visual style was the true marvel.

September 21, 2007 Full Review Source: Movie Metropolis
James Plath
Movie Metropolis

While there is a single disc version of this movie on DVD, the first and best release is a two-disc set.

April 26, 2007 Full Review Source: Apollo Guide
Jamie Gillies
Apollo Guide

Director Rob Marshall has a sophomore flop on his hands.

April 26, 2007 Full Review Source: Apollo Guide
Jamie Gillies
Apollo Guide

For all of its inaccuracies and over-the-top mise-en-scène, Memoirs is quite entertaining.

March 1, 2007 Full Review Source: Film Journal International
David Noh
Film Journal International

full review in Greek

October 3, 2006 Full Review Source: Movies for the Masses
Joseph Proimakis
Movies for the Masses

The overall effect is not so unlike Mameha's description of geisha themselves: a moving work of art.

September 27, 2006
Camerin Courtney
Christianity Today
View all critic reviews (173)

Audience Reviews for Memoirs of a Geisha

View All
Taking on an immense time period and a form of culture that has never been appropriately touched upon, this film does a lot with the book it's based on, creates a wonderful tapestry of history, culture, and most importantly, shows women as commodities. The story begins with a poor little girl in China, who is sold, along with her sister, to a geisha house in a metropolis. She is disconnected with her family, eventually becomes orphaned, and has to move through societal traverses in order to become a geisha, all just so she can survive. The story is not all about her struggles as a woman in a territorial society. The geisha, Sayuri, is also in love with a Chairman whom she met while in her struggles. She is peaceable, quiet, and contemplative at all times, and though she doesn't grow up as a geisha, she acts the part at all times. Zhang Ziyi's performance as Sayuri speaks on the quietness of women in 1920s China, about the art form that exemplified being a geisha, and the taciturn power women held when they used their sexuality as a form of power. There are struggles for power between geisha houses and the women try to gain agency and yet let themselves slip into oblivion time and again and yet feel like they're climbing the social ladder. While Sayuri simply tries to stay in the game in order to win affection and finally be loved, others remotely care about their future as a possible Madame and their link to a future of exploitation. The geisha culture itself is not always explained in the full way it was in the book, and some of that translation is left to be interpreted through intense cinematography, immense sets, period clothing, and the performances from actresses Gong Li, Michelle Yeoh, and Youki Kudoh. It feels and looks as Japanese as a Western audience can expect, but most of the time it felt belabored, longwinded, and far too Hollywood. A Japanese adaptation would have been more powerful, daring, and ultimately may have accomplished what this film lacked. There wasn't much that is learned about what it is to be a geisha from this film except several parlor tricks. As a film that represents history, many of the customs and elaborations weren't correct, and it relied on baseless events in order to drag the film an extra forty minutes in screen-time that it didn't need. The ending was predictable from almost the beginning of the film, but I enjoyed the sappiness of a good love story. Though the film was criticized for using Chinese actresses for Japanese parts, the performances themselves were interesting, especially Gong Li's. The story though is ultimately tried and true, and though this Americanized, saturated version isn't what I expected, it does do what the audience really wants.
July 29, 2010
FrizzDrop
Spencer S.

Super Reviewer

Rob Marshall's film adaptation of Arthur Golden's book is gorgeous to look at and has visual beauty to keep it interesting enough. Dramatically this is a highly uneven story and a cliched one too. Central romance between two main characters is also something which myself felt a bit questionable. After all when Ken Watanabe's charming chairman meets his future love for the first time she is just a little girl. The whole lovestory also goes a as sidenote in the film while it possibly was meant to be the driving motor of the story. It seems that Robin Swicord's screenplay does not know whether it wants to be an insight into world of geisha's or a harlequin-type melodrama. End result is something from the both worlds and that makes it seem a uneven.

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.
April 24, 2013
emilkakko
Emil Kakko

Super Reviewer

Memoirs of a Geisha Quotes

View All
    1. Mameha: You cannot call yourself a true geisha until you can stop a man in his tracks with a single look.
    – Submitted by Despina P (5 months ago)
    1. 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.
    – Submitted by Courtney E (16 months ago)
    1. Sayuri: No geisha could never hope for more.
    – Submitted by Nhia T (16 months ago)
    1. Sayuri: How could you?! You don't know what you have done!
    2. Pumpkin: But I do.
    3. Sayuri: I do not understand. Why did you have to bring the chairman?
    4. 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.
    – Submitted by Nhia T (16 months ago)
    1. Hatsumomo: My dear okasan. We will see, won't we?
    – Submitted by Nhia T (16 months ago)
    1. Mother: I'm entitled to do as I choose.
    2. Hatsumomo: But you promised the okiya to Pumpkin!
    3. Mother: Look at her, still a virgin maiko. [Pumpkin gets up and runs off]
    4. Hatsumomo: Pumpkin! [Hatsumomo tries unsuccessfully to pull her back]
    5. Sayuri: Can't you adopt us both?
    6. 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.
    7. Hatsumomo: I have given you my life.
    8. Mother: Yes your impudence, your foul temper.
    9. Hatsumomo: Who paid for the silk on your back. The rice in your bowl. The tobacco in that pipe of your!? WHO?!
    10. Mother: Don't exaggerate! You have not even had a danna.
    – Submitted by Nhia T (16 months ago)

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