MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA

SYNOPSIS


Arthur Golden's blockbuster bestseller, MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA, has been brilliantly brought to the by Oscar-nominated director Rob Marshall (CHICAGO).

The film opens in a remote Japanese fishing village in 1929, where two sisters, Chiyo and Satsu, are sold by their troubled father to people who place Chiyo in a classy geisha house known as an okiya in Gion and Satsu in a much more vulgar and dangerous district. Chiyo becomes a maid to Hatsumomo, a cold, controlling, and calculating geisha who is instantly jealous of Chiyo's unusual, beautiful eyes and childish innocence. Chiyo is befriended by Pumpkin, another maid at the okiya, but the two are soon driven apart. Chiyo is shown compassion by the Chairman and another, more successful geisha, Mameha, who takes her under her wing as her "little sister," furthering the battle between Chiyo, now called Sayuri, and Hatsumomo. As Sayuri is trained in the art of being a geisha, learning how to walk, talk, dance, and serve (up to a point) in order to please and honor her distinguished male clients, World War II looms on the horizon, threatening to upend Japan and its old ways.



MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA is a lush, sweeping historical and romantic epic, featuring gorgeous period costumes, primarily the exquisite kimono worn by the geisha. Ziyi Zhang (HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS) is outstanding as Sayuri, who stands up to the oppressive Hatsumomo (the effervescent Gong Li), while Michelle Yeoh, who starred with Zhang in CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, is splendid as the wise and elegant Mameha. Ken Watanabe (THE LAST SAMURAI), Koji Yakusho (SHALL WE DANCE?), and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (ELEKTRA) are among the men who take an interest in Sayuri, who is continually faced with difficult choices that will shape her destiny, just as Japan's destiny is changing shape with the coming of the West. John Williams's soaring score is enhanced by solos from virtuosos Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman.

PRODUCTION NOTES

My world is as forbidden as it is fragile; without its mysteries, it cannot survive.

In 1997, author Arthur Golden offered readers an intoxicating and riveting story of a hidden world in his acclaimed novel, Memoirs of a Geisha. The sweeping romantic epic spent two years on The New York Times best-seller list, sold more than four million copies in English, and has been translated into 32 languages.

Now, Oscar nominated director Rob Marshall (Chicago) and producers Douglas Wick & Lucy Fisher, and Steven Spielberg, along with an acclaimed international cast and an award-winning behind-the-camera team have brought this mesmerizing fable to the screen.

Butterflies of the night...

Geisha have long been figures of fascination in Japan and throughout the world. For centuries, they have emerged from their homes at dusk like butterflies from a cocoon for a night's round of teahouse engagements. Social evenings have always been an important part of business in Japan, and the presence of geisha reflects well on the host who can afford such glamorous companions.

Neither wife nor prostitute, a geisha is an artist who earns her living entertaining powerful men. The word gei (pronounced gay) means art in Japanese. A geisha is a trained dancer, singer and musician, as well as witty conversationalist. She laughs at her clients' jokes and never tells his secrets. She creates drama with a simple flick of her fan.

Years of hard work and self-discipline have transformed her into this refined creature, but underneath her binding layers of kimono and neutral mask of make-up is a flesh and blood woman with her own history, disappointments and dreams. The secrets she guards most closely belong to her own heart.

The geisha districts described so vividly in Arthur Golden's novel still exist today, and authentic geisha continue to entertain in elegant old teahouses. They dress, groom themselves and perform as geisha have for centuries. Women who become geisha today are often drawn to the profession through an interest in the traditional arts and may remain in it only a few years. Once their country's most fashionable women, top geisha were the supermodels of their day.

Memoirs of a Geisha begins in 1929, near the end of the geishas' golden era. Told as a fable from a disappearing world, the film is set in a fictional hanamachi or geisha district.

As Sayuri (Ziyi Zhang) enters this hidden world, she is taught that a geisha is not free to love, or to pursue her own destiny. Her mentor, the legendary geisha Mameha (Michelle Yeoh), understands the limits of an intimate relationship with a special patron or danna, and teaches Sayuri to keep her feelings tightly reined. Unlike Sayuri's defiant rival Hatsumomo (Gong Li), Mameha knows that a proper geisha cannot afford to indulge her passion for any man.

Yet Sayuri cannot forget a moment of unexpected kindness she experienced at an early age. The memory of that moment shimmers like a mirage, and sustains her through years of suffering. Looking back at her own life, she remembers a little girl with more courage than she knew, and reflects, These are not the memoirs of an Empress, nor of a Queen. These are memories of another kind.