Because Ma and I saw so many movies over December and January (namely The Brothers Grimm, King Kong, The Chronicles of Narnia, Chicken Little, Valiant, The Producers, Underworld: Evolution and Brokeback Mountain) and I always flash my Cinebuzz card when we go, we ended up with two free tickets for movies in February (they had this whole "See 3 in Dec/Jan for 1 free in Feb!" thing going on)... if we'd seen Harry Potter at Greater Union instead of Reading, we actually would have ended up with 3 tickets... oh well, you can't have everything...Anyway... because Ma has to work late on Tuesday, we decided to take one of the free tickets and go and see Memoirs of a Geisha today.
This was another movie I've been excited about for a while... I read the book ages and ages ago, and when I heard they were making it into a movie and that Michelle Yeoh and Ziyi Zhang were going to be in it, I couldn't wait to see it.
I definitely need to get hold of the book again though... while the movie didn't disappoint, I think it did stray from the book at certain points, plus leaving a whole bunch out, so I'll be interested to go back and read the "full story".
Like I said though, it definitely didn't disappoint... visually it was just stunning... especially the geisha training sequences and Ziyi's dance performance, both of which were just stunning. The standout performance for me though was Suzuka Ohgo was young Chiyo... she was just amazing... and the image of her in the grey kimono with the orange sash running through the orange "corridor" definitely sticks with me...
I'm still working out where it comes on my list of "Visually Stunning Asian Themed Movies", along with The Last Samurai, Hero, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and House of Flying Daggers... I think it probably falls between Hero and Crouching Tiger... although parts of it were very beautiful.
It was another long movie, at 2 hours & 25 minutes, but like Brokeback Mountain (which was 2 hours & 15 minutes) there wasn't any point where I found myself noticing how long it had been running, in fact, I was kind of shocked when it ended (unlike King Kong, where I was just glad it was over).
Although I'm very drawn to the whole Asian aesthetic, I have to say that there was something about this movie that kept me distanced from it. Whether it was the fact that the main character is very reserved and in some ways distanced from her own life, or whether it's that kind of Japanese politeness thing, I don't know, but there were a couple of places where I didn't feel as connected to Ziyi's character as I possibly could or should have been. I think I was on my own in that though, because Ma had a moment after the movie was over, she kind of freaked me out, she wouldn't look away from the screen during the credit run, and wouldn't talk to me... turns out she was fine, she just didn't want to break the spell of the movie. Silly rabbit...
Once again, having said all of that, this one is definitely another one for the DVD collection when it comes out.
yani's rating: 3 apprentice geisha out of 5
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