YMMV / Memoirs of a Geisha

• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: Hatsumomo's story could be interpreted to have the lesson that invoking Screw the Rules, I'm Beautiful! is never going to work out in the long run. She treats everyone horribly because of her status and doesn't consider the consequences of alienating everyone around her. As a result when she starts to age, and another younger and prettier geisha comes along—no one has any reason to put up with her anymore. Even her plan to have Pumpkin inherit the okiya had no chance of working, given how she alienated everyone; Mrs Nitta chooses Sayuri purely because she doesn't want to put up with Hatsumomo (who would make Pumpkin her puppet)—which again all stems from how horribly Hatsumomo treats everyone.
• Alternate Character Interpretation: While Hatsumomo is ostensibly a self-centred Alpha Bitch who gets jealous of Sayuri's eventual success, some parts of her behavior raise questions. She's almost needlessly cruel to both Sayuri and Pumpkin even as children and orchestrates things so that Sayuri will end up alone with the Baron—and her dialogue implies that she hopes Sayuri would be raped and therefore have her reputation destroyed. This points to her being a sociopath, especially given she can't comprehend that alienating numerous people will backfire on her.
• Americans Hate Tingle: The film received overwhelmingly negative reviews in Japan and China, due to the artistic licence with history and fact. It even ended up Banned in China.
• Award Snub:
  • Zhang Ziyi was nominated for the Golden Globe, BAFTA, Screen Actors Guild, Satellite, and New York Film Critics Circle Awards for Best Actress, but did not garner an Academy Award nomination, thus missing out on becoming the first Chinese actress to be nominated for the award. Especially since the demanding role included dancing, singing and playing the same character from the ages of fifteen to thirty-five, as well as learning not only another language but having to speak it with a Japanese accent.
  • Gong Li was nominated at the Satellite Awards and won at the National Board of Review, but no Best Supporting Actress nod at the Academy Awards. Her omission is especially glaring, considering the film's lukewarm reception still got it nominations in technical categories like cinematography, art direction, costume design, sound editing and score. Even critics who hated the movie called her performance the best thing about it and, given her superstardom in China, makes the overlook all the more baffling (although not so if one considers the noted bias against nominating Asian performers.
• Awesome Music: Steven Spielberg was aiming to direct the movie; Rob Marshall ultimately did so, but Spielberg remained on board as one of the producers—and his regular composer John Williams rose to the occasion.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: The mizuage scene was so controversial that it's probably the best-known moment of the film (and thus what makes casual observers remember most about geisha, much to the chagrin of real geisha).
• Broken Base: The casting of the three Chinese actresses (though Michelle Yeoh is a Malaysian of Chinese descent) as Japanese characters sparked furor among the Chinese and Japanese audiences. While the Japanese are upset that no Japanese actress got any of the main roles, the Chinese were very hostile about it which doesn't help that the fragile historical relationship between the two countries since World War II which the movie is set in only fanned more flames. However, several people such as Ken Watanabe defended the cast, citing the actresses' performances was the reason for the casting. It's also become a talking point in more recent years for Asian actors to point out that white performers can play other nationalities like British, American, Australian etc but forcing Asian actors to only play their own nationality is narrowing down the already limited pool of roles (Jamie Chung: "They want Mulan to be Chinese now, which I appreciate, but it's cutting into my roles now").
• Critic-Proof: Despite lukewarm reviews from critics, the film grossed $162 million worldwide.
• Critical Dissonance: The critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes was a pretty low 35%, while audience score was at the much higher 83%. It also has an IMDB score of 7.3.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Aside from being enemies of Sayuri, Hatsumomo and Pumpkin earned this kind of attention from the movie's audience. It's often forgotten that Pumpkin loses everything equally because of Hatsumomo as well as Sayuri. Mrs Nitta knew Pumpkin would end up as a puppet of Hatsumomo's and chooses Sayuri as a healthy alternative—so Hatsumomo dooms Pumpkin by extension. Sayuri at least begs Mrs Nitta to adopt both her and Pumpkin, which again doesn't happen because of Hatsumomo.
• Ending Fatigue:
  • The film appears to climax two or three times—first when Sayuri has her virginity sold to Dr Crab and is named as Mother's successor, then when Hatsumomo tries to burn the okiya and is banished from Gion, removing the story's main antagonist and even when Pumpkin screws Sayuri over as revenge. It's well over two and a half hours before the credits finally roll.
  • The majority of the plot focuses on Sayuri's training under Mameha to become a renowned geisha and save her future by doing so, with overthrowing Hatsumomo being an added bonus—all of which is accomplished two-thirds through the book. Once Hatsumomo leaves, the focus of the plot is Sayuri's determination to be with the Chairman, which stretches the span of several years and decidedly has much lower stakes.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Many people find Hatsumomo the best thing in The Movie.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Pumpkin. Not as pretty as Sayuri, not as talented as Sayuri, not as smart as Sayuri, not as lucky as Sayuri, and browbeaten by her supposed mentor Hatsumomo into the bargain. Oh, and Sayuri is unwittingly responsible for Pumpkin's downfall.
  • Hatsumomo as well. While she is a sadistic bitch, like Sayuri she was not free to be with the man she loved- and was even harshly slut-shamed for it.
• Just Here for Godzilla: A lot of people cited the visuals as the only reason to watch the movie.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: The book and film's creative liberties with geisha traditions are what it's mainly remembered for these days.
• Rooting for the Empire: Hatsumomo and especially Pumpkin get this treatment from some viewers. Nobu gets a similar reception, if only because Sayuri reacts to his desire to be with her the way most heroines respond to the unwanted advances of a villain, when she was the one who started their relationship in the first place. For Pumpkin and Nobu, also see Unintentionally Sympathetic below.
• Rule of Sean Connery: Michelle Yeoh. It's widely agreed that she was perfect casting as Mameha (although her being Chinese playing Japanese did draw some controversy), and she helps elevate the movie to more than it would have been without her.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Chiyo is sold to an okiya, a very harsh, bitter place where she is abused relentlessly; loses both her parents; and is separated from her sister, whom she never sees again. And that's only the beginning!
  • Mameha furiously lambasting Sayuri, who was forcibly stripped by the Baron because he wanted to see her naked before her Mizuage, telling her that everything will be ruined if she's found to be "worthless" and storming out of the room. Sayuri can only mutter a, "I'm not worthless" whilst barely holding back tears.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • The real-life story of Mineko Iwasaki is incredibly interesting in its own right; she overcame a near-fatal kidney disease, entertained Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles, was the victim of much jealous gossip and chose to retire at 29 because she was frustrated with the tradition-bound world she inhabited. The book and movie however present a highly fictionalised Cinderella story that for some is one cliche after another.
  • Even just the circumstances surrounding how Mineko Iwasaki got to the okiya in the first place are incredibly interesting; her family were struggling financially and had to sell two of their daughters there, but that's also because they initially had to take care of her paternal grandparents (who were Impoverished Patricians and couldn't earn a living on their own) until her father cut them off. Mineko (who was called Masako at that point) didn't even realise she had another older sister until she started showing up at the house with her children to have arguments with her parents. She was taken on by the okiya because they were in desperate need of a successor, and she made the decision herself—both out of respect for the geisha tradition, and as a moment of personal sacrifice to save her family from financial ruin. She made this decision at the age of five.
  • This change to the story is a Justified Trope because Mineko's situation was still close enough to birthright privilege that the average Joe wouldn't be able to see themselves in it. Mineko's father was a top kimono textile maker who would have been rich if he wasn't financially supporting the dead weights in the earlier generations of his family, who were accustomed to being feudal aristocrats and wanted to keep living that way even though they lost their fortune in the Meiji Restoration. His position in the kimono making world gave him connections to the top geisha house in Gion, and, by extension, the whole of Japan, which meant that the daughters he sold got opportunities that most other geisha didn't. Mineko, who was recruited to be the heir of the geisha house from the time she was three, was treated particularly well. We find out that Mineko worked extremely hard to turn her opportunity into success, and Mineko pulls no punches when she describes why the two previous would-be heirs didn't have the right character to be successful geisha. But Mineko is just as frank about the fact that an incredible opportunity basically fell into her lap at an extremely young age. Sayuri's story, meanwhile, has the message that even if you think it's too late for you to turn your life around, an opportunity may present itself, and if it does, you should work hard to make the most of it.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: While calling the film 'bad' may be stretching things (critics found it mediocre at worst), the lead actresses were singled out for praise.
  • Zhang Ziyi manages to take how Unintentionally Unsympathetic Sayuri is and still make you root for her, and convey her vulnerability. It's a stark difference from her Action Girl roles in Wuxia that she was more famous for, and she even learned English—which she had to speak with a Japanese accent. Plenty defend her playing a Japanese character solely because of how strong her performance is.
  • Gong Li is having a blast as Hatsumomo that a good portion of viewers found her the best thing about the film (and as seen above, some as the only reason to watch it). She makes her Love to Hate without turning her into a pantomime villain, and many said that as soon as she departs during World War II, the film runs out of steam.
    The Evening Standard: "Li may be playing the loser of the piece but she saves this film"
  • Youki Kudoh nails making Pumpkin The Woobie; even when she's treating Sayuri horribly, you still root for her. In the latter part of the movie, she plays the complete 180 she does in personality while still making her feel like the same person. For many, her Kick the Dog moment to Sayuri became a triumphant display of Beware the Nice Ones thanks to her fire.
  • Michelle Yeoh, like Zhang Ziyi, takes a break from Action Girl roles and imbues Mameha with the right amount of conscience, passion and heart befitting The Mentor.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Pumpkin's revenge against Sayuri is meant to be a major Kick the Dog moment, and gets her compared to the notoriously cruel Hatsumomo, but as she points out to Sayuri, Sayuri took Pumpkin's life goal of becoming officially adopted by the okiya and becoming one of the most successful geisha in Gion, and she didn't really even want that; it was all just "a stepping stone" to get to the Chairman. As a result of not being adopted, Pumpkin, who only managed to survive the war by prostitution, was cut off by Mother and not allowed to return to the Nitta okiya. Under those circumstances, it's easy to feel like Pumpkin's revenge was justified, even if Sayuri hadn't meant to ruin Pumpkin's life.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Sayuri about three-quarters through the book. With everything that she's been through since being sold to the okiya, it's understandable that she wants some happiness in her life via being with the Chairman. However, her plan to do so is to betray Nobu (who basically saved her life when the war started) so he won't want to be her danna anymore, and being adopted by Mother, meaning she takes Pumpkin's life goal. Though she tries to get Mother to adopt Pumpkin too, Sayuri is still shocked with Pumpkin's anger towards her years later, and compares her rightful feelings of betrayal to Hatsumomo's petty cruelty. Values Dissonance also ensues once it's revealed that the Chairman was married the whole time, which she doesn't show any remorse about.
• The Woobie:
  • Chiyo, at least until Mameha decides to take her on.
  • Satsu. She loses her mother, is taken far away from her home, separated from her little sister, and is sold to the pleasure district where she is forced to become a prostitute. Things are so bad that she then runs away, and never sees her sister again.

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